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Digital Exposure - filming glossary Category: Film and Animation > Photographic and Digital Imaging terms Date & country: 15/08/2008, CA Words: 796

Latent image
An image formed by the changes to the silver halide grains in photographic emulsion on exposure to light. The image is not visible until chemical development takes place

Lateral reversal
A mirror image, as seen in the viewfinders of some cameras where the scene appears flipped from left to right

Latitude
Is the degree by which exposure can be varied and still produce an acceptable image. The degree of latitude varies by film type. Faster films tend to have greater latitude than slower films

LCD Screen
Liquid Crystal Display screen found on many digital cameras that allows previewing or reviewing of images. The screen also serves as a monitor for the interface of some camera controls. Different types exist: TFT (Thin Film Transistor) and DSTN (Double Super Twisted Nemantic) are the most common. The TFT screen is brighter and has super...

Leading
Vertical spacing between lines of type, measured in points

Leaf shutter
A camera mechanism that admits light to expose film by opening and shutting a circle of overlapping metal leaves

Legacy files
Files created in an earlier version of an application that may not include support, or may include less support for some features (e.g., CMS) of the newer version of the application

Legal-size
Common name for paper measuring 8.5' by 14'. Commonly used for legal or important documents

Lens
A optical device made of glass or other transparent material that forms images by bending and focusing rays of light. A lens made of a single piece of glass cannot produce very sharp or exact images, so camera lenses are made up of a number of glass 'elements' that cancel out each other's weakness and work together to give a s...

Lens aperture (f/)
The physical opening of a lens. The smaller the f/number the more light passes through

Lens barrel
A metal or plastic tube with a blackened inner surface, in which the lens elements and mechanical components of the lens are mounted

Lens cap
Is a plastic, rubber or metal cover which fits over the front or back of the lens to protect it

Lens coating
A layer or multiple layers of thin anti-reflective materials applied to the surface of the lens elements to reduce light reflection and increase the amount of transmitted light

Lens hood
A short conical shaped tube that attaches to the front of a lens to shield it from extraneous light. Helps prevent lens flare, ghost images and loss of contrast. An inexpensive must have accessory for your camera system

Lens shade
A shield made of thin metal or rubber that fits around a lens to prevent light from hitting the front of the lens and causing flare. Also called a lens hood

Letter-size
Common name for paper measuring 8.5' by 11'. The most common printing size

Light box
A box of fluorescent tubes balanced for white light and covered with translucent glass or plastic. Used for viewing, registering or correcting prints , film negatives and positives

Light meter
Is an alternate term for exposure meter

Light sources
A general term applied to any source of light used in photography

Light-tight
Refers to any room or containers that is absolutely dark inside, allowing no unwanted light to penetrate

Lighting ratio
The ratio between the key and fill lights

Line art copy
Images containing only black and white pixels. Line art may also include one-colour image, such as mechanical blue prints or drawings

Linearity
The degree to which the input of a signal is proportional to the output

Lith film
Very high contrast film, which gives pure blacks and whites and no grays. Lith paper is a very high contrast paper, though it does normally give some grays with all but the contrastiest negatives

Lithium ion batteries
Some of the newer digital cameras are now coming with a lithium rechargeable battery pack. Lithium batteries are lighter and more costly than NiMH or NiCd type of rechargeable cells and can be rapidly charted

Log e
Is the logarithmic value ( to the base 10 ) of the relative brightness exposed on the film when undergoing sensitometric testing

Losslesscompression
A method of image compression where there is no loss in quality when the image is uncompressed. The uncompressed image is mathematically identical to its original. Lossless compression is usually lower in compression radio than lossy compression

Lossy compression
A method of image compression where some image quality is sacrificed in exchange for higher compression ratios. The amount of quality degradation depends on the compression algorithm used and a user selected quality variable

Low key
A dark image that is intentionally lacking in highlight detail

LPI
Liner Per Inch. A measure of resolution, usually screen frequency in halftone

Luminance
Lightness. The highest of the individual RGB values plus the lowest of the individual RGB values, divided by two; a component of Hue-Saturation- Lightness image

Luminosity
The brightness of either a light source or a reflective surface

Lut
Look-up table. The table of colours a computer can display at a given time. The computer uses the table to approximate the desired colour from the range it has available

Macro attachment
These are supplementary elements attached to the front of a normal lens to give an extreme close-up facility

Macro lens
Is a lens specially designed to give accurate resolution of a very near subject without the need for supplementary attachments. Sometimes, incorrectly, referred to as a micro lens

Magazine
Is a light-tight container holding roll film

Magenta
One of the three subtractive primary colours. It is produced by mixing equal amounts of Red and Blue and is the 'M' in CMYK

Magic wand
This selection tool chooses portions of an image based on colour

Main light
Same as ' Key light ' the principal source of light, usually in a studio, and generally the brightest light on a subject or scene

Manual exposure
A mode of camera operation in which all exposure settings are determined and set by the photographer

Marquee
Outline of dots created by image editing program to show area selected for manipulation, masking or cropping

Mask
This tool is used to select a portion of an image. This selection can be altered without affecting the other parts of the image

Matrix metering
In most new digital cameras there is a matrix metering option which uses 256 areas of the frame to calculate the best overall exposure value

Medium format
Normally, a camera taking roll film (typically 120/220 but also 70mm and a range of obsolete roll film sizes), though there are arguably 'medium format' cut film sizes such as 21/4x31/4', 21/2x31/2', 6.5x9cm, and possibly even quarter plate (31/4x41/4'). The most usual formats on 120 films are 645 (15-on or 16-o...

Mega pixels
One million pixels or more. The more pixels that exist in a image the higher the resolution and therefore the greater the quality of the image. Many new Kodak cameras are equipped with mega pixel sensors

Megabyte
A unit of measure of stored data equaling 1,024 Kilobytes, or 1,048,576 bytes

Memory cards
These are small memory modules that can be inserted into the camera to hold images. When the card is full it can be removed and another card inserted. The memory on these cards is non-volatile-m that is, they don't lose their images when they are removed from the camera. The image can be later downloaded from the card, and when the imag...

Merging
Putting two or more data files together. Typically used to describe the merging of two channels of a bitmap image

Metadata
Data about data, or information known about the image in order to provide access to the image. Usually includes information about the intellectual content of the image, digital representation data, and security or rights management information

Metafile
Files that can be shared by more than one application program

Metamerism ( metamers)
A phenomenon in a scanner in which two colours that appear the same to an observer are registered as different by the scanner, or two colours that look different to an observer are accepted as identical by the scanner. Instrument metamerism is a non-recoverable error, because the input cannot be determined from the output

MHz ( Megahertz )
A unit of measure for frequency that can relate to the processing speed of a computer . Equal to one million hertz

Micron
One millionth of a meter also called a micrometer

Mid tones
An area of medium brightness, neither a very dark shadow not a very bright highlight. A medium gray tone in a print

Modeling light
A light built into a flash unit that remains on while the flash is turned or on standby mode, permitting the photographer to assess highlight and shadow areas that will be created when subsequently exposing the film in the brighter light of the flash

Moiré pattern
An undesirable screen pattern in colour printing that results from screen angles of overprinting halftone. Moiré usually results when you scan a halftone or when you scan images taken directly from magazines

Monitor calibration
The process of correcting the colour rendition settings of a monitor to match selected colours of printed output

Monitor RGB
Same as RGB; monitor RGB simply refers specifically to the colour space that can be achieved by a particular monitor using combinations of red, green, and blue light

Mono bath
Is a single solution which combines developer and fixer for processing b&w negatives. It is a quick simple system but does not allow for development control

Monochrome
Single-coloured. An image or medium displaying only black and white or grayscale information. Grayscale information displayed in one colour is also monochrome

Monopod
A one-leg stand for holding the camera steady

Monorail
Large format camera (usually, though there are medium format examples) constructed on an ' optical bench ' principle with front and rear standards on a rail

Motherboard
The main circuit board of a computer that contains the microprocessor, coprocessors, memory, BIOS, expansion slots, and interconnecting circuitry. Additional components can be added through the expansion slots. The electronic interface between the motherboard and the cards in the expansion slots is called the bus

Motor drive
A battery-powered mechanism that advances the film to the next frame and recocks the shutter. Popular for action-sequence photography and for recording images by remote control

Mounting press
Also called a dry-mounting press. A device that provides both pressure and heat, for mounting a photograph on a support, using a tissue coated with heat-softenable adhesive

Mounting tissue
Also called mounting tissue. A thin paper coated with adhesive on both sides for permanently adhering a photograph to a support. The adhesive is softened by heat and hardens when it cools

Movements
The adjustments a view camera can make: tilt, shift, swing, rise and fall. Typically used to adjust plane of focus, distortion and perspective

MPEG
Motion Pictures Expert Group. A motion picture compression system

MTF ( modulated transfer function )
The frequency response of an optical system. Also a test that measures the optical frequency response of a scanner or other optical system. See also transfer function

Multimedia
This involves the combination of two or more media into a single presentation. For example, combining video, audio, photos, graphics and/or animation into a presentation

Multitasking
Multitasking allows multiple tasks to run concurrently, taking turns using the resources of the computer

Nanometer
Is a unit of measurement of light wavelength. A nanometer is one million of a millimeter

ND Filter or Neutral Density Filter
A filter that attenuates light evenly over the visible light spectrum. It reduces the light entering a lens, thus forcing the iris to open to its maximum

Near ultraviolet
Are wavelength from about 400nm down to 250nm. Most photographic emulsions are sensitive to this range of bands

Negative
A photographic image which tonalities and colours are reversed from the original scene. Usually the film negative is used to make a positive print

Negative carrier
A frame that holds a negative flat in an enlarger

Neutral density filter
Describes a gray camera filter which has a equal opacity to all colours of the spectrum and so does not affect the colours in the final image. It is used to reduce the amount of light entering the camera when apertures or shutter must remain constant

Newton rings
A series of concentric circles that appear on a scanned image when a thin layer of air exists between the glass scanner bed and the image being scanned. Newton rings appear when light waves are reflected from both top and bottom surfaces of the air between the glass and the image, interfering with the resulting scan

Nickel cadmium (NiCad)
Rechargeable batteries that use an alkaline electrolyte. They have a longer life than non-rechargeable batteries. NiCad batteries have a memory, so they need to be run all the way down before recharging. Otherwise, they will begin to run out of power sooner

Nickel metal hydride (NiMH)
A rechargeable battery that lasts longer than a NiCad and has no memory, so it is easier to manage

Noise
Noise can be summarized as the visible effects of an electronic error (or interference) in the final image from a digital camera. Noise is a function of how well the sensor (CCD/CMOS) and digital signal processing systems inside the digital camera are prone to and can cope with or remove these errors (or interference)

Non-lossy
Image compression without loss of quality

Normal lens
A lens with a focal length approximately the same as the diagonal measurement of the film being used. This produces an image that approximates the same angle of view and perspective of the human eye. For a 35mm camera, the 50mm lens is considered normal

Online Service
A commercial service that gives computer users Internet access and connection to a variety of online offerings, such as shopping, games and chat rooms

Opacity
The degree to which an object blocks light. Technically, opacity is expressed as a ratio of the incident light to the transmitted light

Opening up
Is increasing the size of the lens aperture or decreasing the shutter speed to admit more light to the film

Optical axis
Is an imaginary line passing horizontally through the center of a compound lens system

Optical disk
A digital storage system commonly used for mass storage

Optical frequency response
A scanner's capability for capturing a given frequency or range of frequencies

Optical resolution
The true resolution of a scanner and the key factor in determining the amount of detail visible in a image. Optical resolution is one type of resolution; the other is interpolated resolution

Optical Scanner
A device that changes images from either reflection or transparency medium to digital data

Optical storage
A peripheral device for storing data. It may be WORM or rewritable

Optical viewfinder
A viewfinder system that shows a similar view to that seen by the camera lens ( as on 35mm compact cameras ) Useful because it uses no power, but can cause parallax and focus errors

Optical Zoom
An optical zoom is made to bring you closer to your subject, without you having to move. Zooms are constructed to allow a continuously variable focal length, without disturbing focus. To achieve this, the optical zoom uses a combination of lenses that magnify the image prior to being registered at high resolution by the sensor. While the di...

Orthochromatic ( Ortho film )
Black-and-white emulsions that are not equally sensitive to all colours of light. They are more sensitive to blue and green, but not sensitive to red light

Out-of-focus
Refers to an image created when the rays of light passing through a lens fall upon a plane in front of or beyond the point at which they converge to form a sharp image. Out-of-focus images appear blurred or fuzzy

Output resolution
The detail and clarity (achieved by tightness of dots) with which the image will be displayed or printed (dependent on the capability of the display or printing device)

Overdevelop
To give more than normal the amount of development

Overexposure
To give more than normal exposure to film or paper. The resulting silver is often too great for best results

Oversampling
Scanning at more than an optimum sampling rate