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840 terms · page 23 of 35
Multiple Exposure
Motion, Video & Creative Techniques
count
Combining two or more exposures onto a single frame, either in camera or during processing.
Nano Coating
Optics, Lenses & Filters
A coating built from structures smaller than the wavelength of light, creating an extremely low refractive index layer that almost eliminates reflection.
Native ISO
Exposure & Metering
ISO
Any ISO value produced by real analogue gain in the sensor's readout circuitry, as opposed to numbers created by brightening the file in software.
Negative Space
Composition & Visual Design
The empty or unoccupied area surrounding the subject, which gives it room and defines its shape.
Neutral Density Filter
Optics, Lenses & Filters
stops (EV)
A grey filter that reduces the amount of light entering the lens uniformly across all wavelengths, without altering colour.
Stops = log₂(filter factor)
New Colour Photography
Genres, Movements & Theory
The movement of the 1970s that established colour as a serious medium for art photography rather than a commercial or amateur one.
New Objectivity
Genres, Movements & Theory
A German movement of the 1920s favouring clear, unsentimental description of the world, often in close-up and typological form.
New Topographics
Genres, Movements & Theory
A 1975 exhibition and the approach it named, photographing the altered landscape — suburbs, industrial parks, car parks — in a deliberately neutral manner.
New Vision
Genres, Movements & Theory
An interwar movement, associated with the Bauhaus, that treated the camera as a device for seeing in ways the eye cannot.
Noise Floor
Sensors & Digital Capture
e⁻ (electrons)
The level of background noise below which no real signal can be distinguished.
Non-destructive Editing
Post-Processing & Retouching
An approach in which adjustments are stored as instructions rather than being written into the pixels of the original file.
Nozzle Check
Printing, Display & Output
A test pattern printed to confirm that every ink channel is firing correctly.
Nyquist Limit
Sensors & Digital Capture
lp/mm
The highest spatial frequency a sensor can record correctly, equal to half its sampling rate.
f_Nyquist = 1 / (2 × pixel pitch)
Octabox
Lighting & Flash
cm
An eight-sided softbox whose near-circular shape produces round catchlights and even wrap-around light.
Offset Lithography
Printing, Display & Output
lpi
The dominant commercial printing process, in which ink is transferred from a plate to a rubber blanket and then to paper.
One-inch Type Sensor
Cameras, Formats & Systems
mm
A sensor measuring about 13.2 by 8.8 millimetres, with a crop factor near 2.7×, common in premium compacts and drones.
Crop factor ≈ 2.7
Onion-ring Bokeh
Optics, Lenses & Filters
Concentric rings visible inside out-of-focus highlights, caused by tooling marks on a moulded aspherical element.
Opacity
Post-Processing & Retouching
%
The degree to which a layer or adjustment obscures what is beneath it, expressed as a percentage.
Open Shade
Lighting & Flash
An area shielded from direct sun but open to a large expanse of sky, giving soft, even illumination.
Optical Brightening Agents
Printing, Display & Output
Fluorescent additives in paper that absorb ultraviolet light and re-emit it as blue, making the sheet look whiter.
Optical Image Stabilisation
Motion, Video & Creative Techniques
stops
Stabilisation achieved by moving a lens group to counteract camera shake.
Optical Low-pass Filter
Sensors & Digital Capture
A birefringent layer in front of the sensor that slightly blurs the image to prevent detail finer than the pixel grid from being recorded.
Optical Slave
Lighting & Flash
m (range)
A sensor that fires a flash when it detects the light from another flash.
Optical Viewfinder
Cameras, Formats & Systems
A finder that shows the scene by direct optical path rather than on a screen.