1. Camera Lens

2. Lens • The lens is the most important part of the camera • Lens captures light and focuses the light on the part of the camera that receives the image • CCD (charge-coupled device) or • CMOS (complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor) image sensors

3. Zoom • Zoom simply means that the lens can magnify the image a lot or a little • and it can glide between those settings. • Three basic ranges of a typical zoom lens. • Telephoto: • term for zooming your lens all the way in • maximizing your magnification. • Normal: This is the amount of magnification that approximates what your eyes see. • Wide Angle: • term for zooming your lens all the way out. • minimize magnification so you have a wider field of view. • you can see more stuff, but it all seems further away.

4. Focal Length • Each level of magnification is assigned a number, referred to as the focal length. • A lot of magnification (telephoto) = large focal length number (like 100) • little magnification (wide angle) = a smaller number (like 10). • These characteristics can be used to convey meaning, mood and emotion. So it is important that you learn the differences.

5. Telephoto • Telephoto (or "long focal length") lens settings have a couple interesting characteristics. • compress distance. - things that are far apart in real life seem closer together. • exaggerate camera movement. – see more camera shake (always use a tripod) • more difficult to focus – only allows a focus over a narrow range • Wide Angel • Wide angle (“short focal length”) has the opposite characteristics of telephoto settings. • exaggerates distance - make things seem further apart.   • Easy to focus- it's almost impossible to get things out of focus here.

6. Aperture • Your eye at night pupil opens - gather as much light as possible. • Your eye on a sunny day - pupil gets small to shut out excess light. • Aperture (or f-stop) • refers to the opening at the base of the lens • determines how much light enters the camera. • Uses numbers called f-stops. • This is a standard sequence of f-stops from f/2.8 to f/8 • 2.8   3.4    4.0    4.8    5.6    6.7    8 • f/2.8 setting lets in the most light • f/8 setting lets in the least. • The f-stop is a ratio between the diameter of the aperture in the lens and the focal length of the lens. • It is important to get the exposure right         

7. Depth-of-Field • DOF - total focused area in front of and behind an object held in the focus of a camera or lens • the ability to manipulate depth of field is important, • Focal Length • telephoto lens settings limit the number of things in focus. • they decrease depth of field. • Wide angle lenses increase depth of field. • Camera Distance • Getting close to your subject means less depth of field. • Moving away, means more depth of field.