One of the most confusing things about photography for amateurs and beginners is the abundance of technical terms. Read on for explanations of some of the most common and useful terms.
ISO
Technically, this stands for "International Standards Organization" but that isn't the definition we are looking for. For us, ISO stands for a sensor on a digital camera that determines how sensitive to light the sensor is. There are cameras that can range in sensitivity from ISO 50 to ISO 3200 or higher, doubling each time. A camera with a low ISO value means the sensor is less sensitive to light. This allows for taking pictures in low light more problematic, but gives the picture a higher quality in return. The higher ISO value means taking photos in low light is easier, however the drawback is your photos are subject to digital 'noise' or random dots of color found mostly in the darkest areas of the photo. Unfortunately, this will limit the size of which the photo can be printed.
Note that in Automatic mode, your camera will choose what ISO to use by itself. It will generally choose a low ISO wherever there is sufficient light.
Zoom Range
This term refers to how wide and how 'zoomed in' a photo you can shoot. Typically, when you turn on a camera, it will be set at the widest zoom as a default setting. By using the controls, you can zoom in on something that is small or far away in order to have it fill the frame.
Zoom range is quoted either in 35mm terms (i.e. 35-175mm), or in a multiple (i.e. 5x), where the widest settings times the multiple is the longest setting (for example, 5 x 35 = 155).
Most compact point-and-shoot cameras have a zoom range that starts in the 28-35mm range and zooms in about 4x or 5x. If you can, select a camera with as wide a wide setting as possible (usually 28mm, though cameras with wider wide settings are available), as this will be very useful when shooting indoors where you can't just take a step backwards in order to get it all in.
Megapixel
Just your monitor display on your computer is made up of tiny dots, so too are the photos of a digital camera. A megapixel is a million of these dots. It is believed that the higher the megapixels, the higher resolution your photo will have.
When a camera is listed as having a certain number of megapixels, this refers to the maximum number of pixels a photo can be comprised of. A higher megapixel camera will allow the photographer to take pictures composed of more pixels than a lower megapixel camera.
A camera with a high megapixel number takes photos that can be printed and viewed in better quality. For the most part, 6 megapixels is more than enough for the average user. Salesman may try to convince you that higher than that is better, but in truth, you would only need more than 6 if you planned on printing extremely large photos.
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