Understanding the Elements of Exposure Poster
A pixel is the smallest unit of a digital image that can be represented or controlled.
A megapixel is one million pixels put together in a rectangle, or 1000 pixels x 1000 pixels. Instead of saying 3,000,000 pixels, you can just say 3 megapixels.
A megapixel is one million pixels put together in a rectangle, or 1000 pixels x 1000 pixels. Instead of saying 3,000,000 pixels, you can just say 3 megapixels.
A picture's resolution is the number of pixels that make up an image. The higher the resolution, the less "pixely" the photo will look. Image size and resolution are directly proportional.
The camera's aperture is the diaphramic opening in the lens that increases or decreases in size to control the amount of light that passes through, just like how our eyes adjust when entering a dark room. In order to see, your eye needs to let more light in, therefore increasing it's aperture. Likewise, in photography, the lens would open wider to receive more of the light.
The camera's shutter is a curtain that opens for a specified amount of time to control the amount of light that passes through. This happens in fractions of seconds.
The combination of both concepts, aperture and shutter, is called exposure. It results in a specific amount of light entering the camera. However, this can result in overexposure, which is too much light entering the camera, or underexposure, which is too little light enters the camera.
Equivalent Exposure is when the two combinations of aperture and shutter speeds allow an equal amount of light into the camera.
The photo's depth of field describes the distance between the nearest and farthest object in a scene that appears sharp.
Great depth of fieldIn this photo, everything appears sharp, therefore, the photographer isn't telling the viewer's eye where to look.
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Shallow depth of fieldHowever, in this photo, only the mailboxes appear sharp, while the background is blurred. The depth of field gives the photo a clear focal point.
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