Film Camera and Lens Equipment Key Terms

Understand pre-digital photography by learning film camera and lens equipment key terms

It would be nice if all you had to do to get great pictures was hold up the camera, point it in the right direction and press the shutter button. While part of taking great pictures has to do with how the photographer sees things, a big help to the process is having thorough knowledge of the camera. Film cameras, in a digital photography era, require an understanding of seldom-heard film camera and lens equipment key terms.

 

Field of view

Field of view is the angle at which objects can be seen through the viewfinder of the camera and can be recorded on film. Anything outside the field of view is not recorded in the photograph.
Try: See Photo.net for more information. Also visit Pelco to learn how to calculate field of view.

Lens filter

Lens filters are made of glass or plastic and screw in front of the lens of the camera. They can enhance the final image by producing effects such as color enhancement and contrast enhancement, or by darkening light skies.
Try: CameraFilters.com has excellent explanations of the different filters that are available.

Range finder

A range finder is a type of film camera that has two view windows instead of a lens to view the subject. Separate views are created by each window that, when in focus, align with each other to create one image.
Try: SCPHOTO defines the range finder camera and other film cameras for better film camera understanding.

Wide-angle lens

A wide-angle lens on a camera usually has a shorter focal length than that of a normal lens and is used for landscape and wildlife photography, where more of the scene needs to be photographed.
Try: Nature Photographers presents an in-depth discussion on the use of the wide-angle lens.

Light meter

A light meter measures the amount of light and tells the photographer the correct exposure at which to set his or her camera for a photograph. There are two types of meters-reflective and incident light meters. Reflective meters measure the amount of light reflecting off the subject and incident light meters measure the amount of light falling on the subject.
Try: Visit Fred Parker's website for more information on how to adjust your settings for extreme conditions such as snow or sand in bright light. Look at Weatherscapes.com for more information.

Prime lenses

A prime lens is a lens with a fixed focal length, as opposed to a zoom lens which has a wider range of focal length available. Apart from being cheaper, there are fewer distortions from a prime lens, which allows for sharper images.
Try: Visit the website of Photocritic for a fuller explanation and history of prime lenses.

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