Browse All 840 Photography Terms A–Z

Highlight Recovery Post-Processing & Retouching stops The reconstruction of detail in bright areas where one or two colour channels have clipped but at least one has not.

Highlight-weighted Metering Exposure & Metering A metering pattern that biases exposure toward protecting the brightest area of the frame from clipping.

Histogram Exposure & Metering A graph of how many pixels in an image fall at each brightness level, from black on the left to white on the right.

Holy Grail Transition Motion, Video & Creative Techniques stops A time-lapse that runs across a large change in light, such as day into night, requiring exposure to change during the sequence.

Honeycomb Grid Lighting & Flash degrees (10°, 20°, 30°, 40°) A cellular insert placed over a light that narrows its beam by absorbing rays travelling at wide angles.

Horizon Line Composition & Visual Design The line where sky meets land or sea, which in a photograph always sits at the camera's own eye level.

Hot Pixel Sensors & Digital Capture count A photosite with abnormally high dark current that records as a bright coloured dot in long exposures.

Hot Shoe Cameras, Formats & Systems The standardised bracket on top of a camera that both holds an accessory and provides electrical contacts to trigger it.

HSL Colour & Colour Management A colour model describing colour by hue, saturation and lightness, widely used for targeted colour editing.

Hue Colour & Colour Management degrees (0-360) The attribute of a colour that gives it its name — red, green, blue — represented as a position on a circular scale.

Humanist Photography Genres, Movements & Theory A postwar movement, strongest in France, that photographed ordinary life with warmth and an emphasis on shared human experience.

Hybrid Autofocus Focus & Depth of Field A system combining phase detection for speed and direction with contrast detection for final precision.

Hybrid Viewfinder Cameras, Formats & Systems A finder that can switch between an optical view and an electronic one, or overlay electronic information on the optical image.

Hyperfocal Distance Focus & Depth of Field m The focus distance that yields the greatest depth of field, extending from half that distance out to infinity. H = f² / (N × c) + f

Hyperlapse Motion, Video & Creative Techniques m per frame A time-lapse in which the camera moves substantially between frames, producing accelerated motion through space.

ICC Profile Colour & Colour Management A standardised data file describing how a device's colour numbers relate to absolute, measurable colour.

Illuminance Exposure & Metering lux (lx) The amount of light arriving on a surface per unit area, measured in lux, independent of what that surface does with it. E = Φ / A

Image Circle Optics, Lenses & Filters mm The circular area of usable image a lens projects, which must be at least as large as the sensor's diagonal. Diameter ≥ sensor diagonal

Image Licensing Files, Metadata & Workflow Granting specified rights to use an image while retaining ownership of the copyright.

Image Sensor Sensors & Digital Capture mm The silicon chip that converts light into an electrical signal, forming the digital equivalent of film.

Image Stacking Post-Processing & Retouching count Averaging multiple identical exposures to reduce random noise or to combine content across frames. SNR improvement = √n

Implied Motion Composition & Visual Design The suggestion of movement within a still image, created by blur, gesture, position or direction.

In-body Image Stabilisation Motion, Video & Creative Techniques stops Stabilisation achieved by moving the sensor itself to counteract camera movement.

Incident-light Metering Exposure & Metering EV Measuring the light falling onto a subject rather than the light reflecting off it, using a handheld meter with a white diffusing dome.

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