Lenses and Photography Vocabulary

Lens Questions

I would use a telephoto lens to take a picture of a flower, or maybe some leaves on a tree. I might also use it to take a picture of someones eye, or something small/tiny. 

I would use a prime lens to take a picture of a birthday/birthday cake at a dimly lit party. I might also use it to take a picture of a dark street, or something at night.

I would use a wide-angle lens to take a picture of a field of some sort, whether it's a football field or soccer field. i might also use it to take a picture of the sky, or something large like a school of some sort.

Photography Vocabulary Definitions

Depth of Field (Shallow & Wide) - the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image. Shallow - A shallow depth of field would mean that only objects within a small distance in a scene would be focused; everything else would be out-of-focus. Deep - A deep depth of field would mean that a much larger range of objects at various distances would be in focus.

Light (Angle & Intensity) - The angle of light is where the light is coming from and how it bounces off of things in the photo. The intensity of light refers to how bright it is in the photo. 

Shadows - A dark area or shape produced by a someone or something between rays of light and a surface.

Diffusion - In photography it means the scatter of light.

Exposure - Is the amount of light collected by the sensor in your camera during a photo.

Aperture (f-stop) - The unit of measurement that defines the size of the opening in the lens that can be adjusted to control the amount of light reaching the film or digital sensor.

Shutter Speed - Shutter speed is the length of time a cameras shutter is open.

ISO - How sensitive the image sensor is to the amount of light present. The higher the ISO, the more sensitive the image sensor and therefore the possibility to take pictures in low-light situations.