Photography terminology starting with E
Exposure – amount of light you expose your sensor or film to. Determined by the aperture and shutter speed.
Exposure Compensation – feature on most cameras that allows you to increase or decrease the exposure in manual modes.
Electronic Viewfinder – A digital display used in some digital cameras to provide a real-time preview of the scene being photographed. Unlike optical viewfinders found in DSLR cameras, EVFs use electronic sensors and displays to simulate the view through the camera lens, allowing photographers to preview exposure, focus, and composition adjustments before capturing an image.
Equivalent focal length – A term used to describe the effective focal length of a lens when used on a camera with a sensor size different from its native format. Equivalent focal length considers the crop factor or sensor size difference between cameras to provide a comparison of the angle of view produced by the lens on different camera systems.
Enlarger – An enlarger is a photographic device used in traditional darkroom printing to project and magnify the image from a negative onto light-sensitive photographic paper. Enlargers consist of a light source, a negative carrier, a lens, and adjustable focus and height controls, allowing photographers to control the size, sharpness, and exposure of the final print.
Exhibition – A public display or presentation of photographs, either in physical or digital format, for viewing by an audience. Photography exhibitions can take various forms, including gallery shows, museum exhibitions, online portfolios, or multimedia presentations, and may feature individual photographers, group exhibitions, or thematic collections.
Exposure value (EV) – Exposure value is a numerical scale used to represent the combination of aperture and shutter speed settings that determine the overall exposure of an image. Each increment of exposure value represents a doubling or halving of the amount of light reaching the camera sensor, allowing photographers to adjust exposure settings while maintaining a consistent exposure value.
Editing – Selecting, adjusting, and enhancing images to improve their visual appeal, composition, and storytelling. Editing may involve cropping, colour correction, exposure adjustments, retouching, and creative effects applied using digital image editing software such as Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom.
External Flash – A portable flash unit that can be mounted on a camera’s hot shoe or used off-camera for additional lighting in photography. External flashes provide more power, flexibility, and control over lighting compared to built-in camera flashes, allowing photographers to achieve creative lighting effects, reduce harsh shadows, and improve overall exposure in low-light situations.
Extension Tube – A hollow, cylindrical attachment used in macro photography to increase the distance between the camera lens and the camera sensor, allowing for closer focusing and greater magnification of small subjects. Extension tubes do not contain optical elements but simply extend the lens-to-sensor distance, enabling macro photographers to achieve higher magnification ratios without the need for specialized macro lenses.
Edge Sharpness –The clarity and definition of fine details and lines near the edges of objects in an image. High-edge sharpness indicates well-defined and crisp edges, while low-edge sharpness may result in soft or blurry edges, reducing the overall sharpness and clarity of the image.
Emulsion – In traditional film photography, emulsion refers to the light-sensitive coating applied to photographic film or paper. The emulsion consists of light-sensitive silver halide crystals suspended in a gelatin or collodion base, which react chemically to light exposure during the photographic process, forming latent or visible images that can be developed and fixed to create photographic prints.
