Camera Terminology

DSLR:

A DSLR stands for digital single-lens reflex. It is a digital camera which combines the optics and mechanisms of a single lens reflex camera with a digital imaging sensor, as to supposed photographic film.

Aperture:  

The aperture stop of a photographic lens can be adjusted to control the amount of light reaching the film or image sensor. In combination with variation of shutter speed, the aperture size will regulate the film’s or image sensor’s degree of exposure to light.

As you can see by the diagram with the daffodil on the left, the smaller the aperture the aperture the more of the photo you can see and the bigger the aperture the less you can see.

So on this image above you can see it had quite a big aperture as the leaf in the foreground is in focus but the background is blurry, this is because of the aperture. The aperture could have been anywhere from F5,6- F1,4. I would say that it was more likely F1,4 as the background is very blurry.

Shutter Speed:

In photography, shutter speed or exposure time is the length of time when the film or digital sensor inside the camera is exposed to light, also when a camera’s shutter is open when taking a photograph. The amount of light that reaches the film or image sensor is proportional to the exposure time.

As you can see  from the diagram above shows examples of shutter speed. The top right candle is letting in the least amount of light in which means the shutter speed was fast to let in the as little light as possible and the bottom right candle    shows a slow shutter speed to let lots of light.

ISO:

ISO is the sensitivity of your sensor to light. The ISO setting you use depends on the amount of light in the scene you are photographing. The more light you have to work with the lower you can set your ISO. As settings go, ISO is one of the key camera menus you need to learn.

The darker your surrounding the higher the ISO number should be and the lighter the ISO the lower the number should be.

The image above shows the lowest ISO number to the highest ISO number.

Depth of field:

DOF is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image. Although a lens can precisely focus at only one distance at a time, the decrease in sharpness is gradual on each side of the focused distance, so that within the DOF, the unsharpness is imperceptible under normal viewing conditions.

large depth of field means the camera lens will be wide and everything in the image is in focus.

Small depth of field means the camera lens is narrow and has a small focus point.