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It’s always handy to have a single resource where you can look up various terms you’ll
encounter while working with your digital camera. Here is the latest update of a glos-
sary I’ve compiled over the years, with some new additions specifically for the Nikon
D7000.
AE-L/AF-L A button on the D7000 that allows locking exposure and/or focus point
prior to taking a photo.
ambient lighting Diffuse, non-directional lighting that doesn’t appear to come from
a specific source but, rather, bounces off walls, ceilings, and other objects in the scene
when a picture is taken.
analog/digital converter The EXPEED module in the camera that electronically con-
verts the analog information captured by the D7000’s sensor into digital bits that can
be stored as an image.
angle of view The area of a scene that a lens can capture, determined by the focal length
of the lens. Lenses with a shorter focal length have a wider angle of view than lenses
with a longer focal length.
anti-alias A process that smoothes the look of rough edges in images (called jaggies or
staircasing) by adding partially transparent pixels along the boundaries of diagonal lines
that are merged into a smoother line by our eyes. See also jaggies.
aperture The size of the opening in the iris or diaphragm of a lens, relative to the lens’s
focal length. Also called an f/stop. For example, with a lens having a focal length of
100mm, an f/stop with a diameter of 12.5mm would produce an aperture value of f/8.
Aperture-priority A camera setting that allows you to specify the lens opening or f/stop
that you want to use, with the camera selecting the required shutter speed automatically
based on its light-meter reading. See also Shutter-priority.
artifact A type of noise in an image, or an unintentional image component produced
in error by a digital camera during processing, usually caused by the JPEG compression
process in digital cameras, or, in some cases, by dust settling on the sensor.
Glossary