Digital SLR Cameras & Photography For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Chapter 17. Ten (or More) Confusing Concepts Clarified

In This Chapter

• Knowing the terms involved in taking your photos

• Understanding what certain settings' names actually mean

• Making sense of your image editor's terminology

Photography is easy: It's the jargon that's difficult! Today's digital SLRs make it simple to point, shoot, and get great pictures right out of the box. Even the most basic dSLR is smart enough to save you from your own mistakes when your ambitions don't extend beyond simple scenes, simple setups, and simple subjects.

When you want to spread your wings and try different techniques, more advanced features and more advanced photographic concepts come into play. At that point, you may want to become comfortable with that jargon — not so that you can sound knowledgeable when hanging around with other photographers, but so you can put those sometimes-confusing concepts to work for you. I explain all the key terms throughout this book, but in this chapter, I single out a few of the trickiest terms that relate to cameras, photography, and image editing, and provide the depth and knowledge that you can use.

Ambient Lighting/Available Lighting

Ambient lighting is sometimes confused with available lighting or existing lighting, which are themselves often confusing for those not steeped in photo jargon. Available and existing lighting are the same thing (or should be) and are most ...