Camera technology, jargon and techniques explained • Use the A-Z index or the search box to look up your chosen term
Available light photography is the technique of shooting in low light levels and not using any additional illumination like flash, but simply using whatever light there is. It’s the light that makes the photograph, not just the subject. ‘Available light’ [...]
The shutter speed is the length of time the shutter is open during the exposure, and one of the two methods of controlling the exposure (the other is the lens aperture). The camera’s shutter is normally closed, but when the picture [...]
An image stabilisation system which moves the sensor during the exposure to reduce or prevent blur due to camera movement. It’s used in Pentax digital SLRs (shown below) and others. This is in contrast to other stabilisation systems which move [...]
‘Safe’ shutter speeds are those where camera shake is unlikely. The picture above was shot at too slow a shutter speed, which is why it’s blurred. The usual guide to ‘safe’ speeds is to take the equivalent focal length of [...]
A one-legged tripod and more useful than it sounds. Although monopods are obviously not free-standing, they do eliminate movement in at least one axis when you’re shooting. A monopod will also support the weight of a heavy camera/lens, and fatigue [...]
An image stabiliser is a hardware device which counters the effects of camera shake at slow shutter speeds. It may be built into lenses or camera bodies and it consists of tiny gyroscopic motion detectors which instantly adjust either an [...]
Camera shake is blurring in photos due to camera movement during the exposure. The faster the shutter speed, the less likely you are to see any blur in the photo, though the longer the focal length (zoom setting), the more [...]