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Welcome to my TOP PHOTO TIPS page.
I hope this will be of some use to you.
I have been interested in photography since I was
young but seriously for the past 9 years.

APERTURE.
 BAS-RELIEF.
COLOUR TEMPERATURE.
 DEPTH OF FIELD.
EXPOSURE. FOCAL LENGTH.
GRAIN. HYPERFOCAL DISTANCE.
I.S.O. JOULE.
KELVIN (K). LONGFOCUS LENS.
MULTIPLE EXPOSURE. NEGATIVE.
PANNING. RED EYE.
SHUTTER. TUNGSTEN LIGHT.
U.V. FILTER. VIEWFINDER.
WIDE-ANGLE LENS. ZOOM LENS.



APERTURE.
The aperture is the opening of the lens through which light enters the camera.
On all but the simplest cameras, you can increase or decrease the opening,
usually by means of an iris diaphragm (a series of crescent-shaped blades that
makes a circular opening in the middle of the lens), and this is one of the
principal ways of controlling how the picture will look. Widening the aperture
allows more light to reach the film.

The aperture ring on the lens is calibrated with a series of numbers, known
as stops, each full stop doubling or halving the amount of light let in. These stops
are marked on the aperture control ring in a coded numerical series f-numbers,
running in a standard sequence f/1. f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22.
The numbers get bigger as the aperture opening gets smaller.

Small apertures let through little light, yet they enable the camera to render most
of the subject sharply. Large apertures let through more light, but record only a
shallow plane clearly. Choosing the right aperture is not, therefore, just a matter
of getting the EXPOSURE right - it is necessary also to take into account
the nature and depth of the subject and how the scene before the camera is to
appear on film.
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BAS-RELIEF.
A bas-releif print will give the illusion of being 3D. This is produced by
sandwiching a positive and NEGATIVE of the same image, but
moving them slightly out of register, and then printing the combination.
This will produce hard shadows and highlights will appear around solid
shapes in the picture.
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COLOUR TEMPERATURE.
The temperature to which an inert substance would have to be heated in order
for it to glow a particular colour. The scale colour temperature significant for
photography ranges from the reddish colours of approximately 2000`k through
standard 'white' at 5400`k to the bluish colours above 6000`k.
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DEPTH OF FIELD.
The zone of acceptable sharpness in a picture, in front of
and beyond the place of critical focus. You can control or exploit
depth of field by varying three factors: the size of the APERTURE;
the distance of the camera from the subject; and the FOCAL LENGTH
of the lens. If you decrease the size of the APERTURE, the
depth of field increases; if you focus on a distant subject, depth of field
will be greater than if you focus on a near subject; and if you fit a
WIDE-ANGLE LENS to your camera, it will give you greater
depth of field than a normal lens viewing the scene.
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EXPOSURE.
The amount of light that passes through a lens (in either a camera or
an enlarger) onto a light-sensitive material (film or photographic paper)
to form an image.
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FOCAL LENGTH.
The distance, usually given in millimeters, between the optical center
of a lens and the point at which rays of light from objects at infinity
are brought to focus. In general the focal length of a lens, the smaller and
more magnified the part of the scene it includes in the picture frame.
A normal lens for a 35mm camera typically has a focal length of 50mm,
a WIDE-ANGLE LENS one of 28mm and a telephoto lens one of 135mm.
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GRAIN.
An individual light-sensitive crystal, normally of silver bromide.
The granular texture appearing to some degree in all processed photographic
materials. In black-and-white photographs the grains are minute particles of
black metallic silver that constitute the dark areas of a photograph.In colour
photographs the silver is removed chemically, but tiny blotches of dye retain the
appearence of grain. The more sensitive - or faster - the film, the coarser
the grain will be.
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HYPERFOCAL DISTANCE.
The closest distance at which a lens records a subject sharply when
focused at infinity. It varies with the APERTURE.
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I.S.O.
International Standard Organization. Until recently, film speed
has been indicated by an ASA (American Standards Association)
number, or by DIN (Deutsche Industrie Norm) number, and the ASA
number appears first in the new ISO system of designating speed. Thus,
a marking ISO 100/21` (or simply ISO 100) indicates ASA 100 or 21`DIN -
a medium speed. Slow films (ISO 25)are useful for static, detailed subject,
such as still-life or architecture. Fast films (above ISO 400)are an advantage
in poor light or for action photographs requiring fast SHUTTER speeds.
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JOULE.
Unit of electronic flash output, equal to one watt-second. The power
of different units can be compared with this measurement.
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KELVIN (K).
The standard unit of thermodynamic temperature, calculated by
adding 273 to degrees centigrade/celsius. In photography it is a
measure of COLOUR TEMPERATURE.
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LONGFOCUS LENS.
Lens with a FOCAL LENGTH longer than the diagonal
on the film format. For 35mm film, anything longer than about 50mm is
therefore long-focus, although in practice the terms is usually applied
to lenses with at least twice the standard FOCAL LENGTH.
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MULTIPLE EXPOSURE.
Method of combining more than one image on a single frame of film by
making successive exposures of different subjects.
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NEGATIVE.
Photographic image with reversed tones (and reversed colours if color
films) used to make a positive image, normally a print by projection.

A developed photographic image in which light tones are recorded as dark
and dark one as light. In colour negatives, each colour of the original subject
is represented by its complementary. Usually, a negative is made up on a
transparent base so that can be beamed through it onto light-sensitive printing
paper to form a positive image.
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PANNING.
Smooth rotation of the camera so as to keep a moving subject continously
in frame. A technique of moving the camera to follow the motion of a subject,
used to convey speed or to freeze a moving subject at slower SHUTTER
speeds. Often, a relatively slow SHUTTER speed is used to blur the
background while panning keeps the moving object sharp.
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RED EYE.
The bright red colour of the pupil of the eye that sometimes disfigures picture
taking by flash. It is caused by reflection of the flash units lights from layers of
the retina rich in blood vessels. Red eye can be avoided by making sure the
subject is not looking directly at the camera or by using off-camera or
bounce flash.
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SHUTTER.
Camera mechanism that controls the period of time that image-focusing
light is allowed to fall on the film.
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TUNGSTEN LIGHT.
Artifical lighting caused by heating a filament of tungsten to a
temperature where it emits light.

A common type of electric light for both household and photographic
purposes, named after the filament of the metal tungsten through which
the current passes. Tungsten light is much warmer in colour (more orange)
than daylight or electronic flash, and with daylight-balanced film you must
use a blue filter to reproduce colours accurately. Alternatively, you can
use a special tungsten-balanced film.
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U.V. FILTER.
Lens filter used to absorb ultraviolet radiation, which is prevalent on
hazy days. Like skylight filters, U.V. filters have no effect on
the EXPOSURE.
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VIEWFINDER.
The window, screen or frame on a camera through which the photographer
can see the area of a scene that will appear in the picture.
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WIDE-ANGLE LENS.
Lens with an angle of view wider than that of the human eye and having
a short FOCAL LENGTH.

The wide-angle lens has other characteristics that are not as obvious as its
broad field of view. Because the lens forms a smaller image of the subject, the
photographer can move closer. Taking a pace towards a subject two metres
away halves the subject distance - but has an insignificant effect on the
distance between the camera and a far-off hill. The background of the picture
therefore appears farther away if a wide-angle lens is used, when the photograph
is compared to images made with a standard lens. Thus a wide-angle lens seems
to expand perspective and stretch out space.

Wide-angle lenses have greater DEPTH OF FIELD, too, so that they are
a good choice when everything in the picture must be recorded sharply,
from close-up through to infinity.
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ZOOM LENS.
Zoom lenses have variable FOCAL LENGTHS; turning or sliding a ring
on the lens barrel makes the subject larger or smallerin the viewfinder.
One zoom lens can therefore take the place of several fixed
FOCAL LENGTH lenses.

For example, in an 80-200mm zoom lens, the FOCAL LENGTH can
be changed anywhere between the lower limit of 80mm and the upper
of 200mm.

A zoom lens allows the photographer to crop the picture very precisely,
framing the subject perfectly. This is especially important when taking
colour transparencies, because there is no opportunity for cropping the
picture in the darkroom.
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