Photography for beginners

hard/soft lighting

Lighting that produces hard or soft shadows.  Hard lighting is obtained from high intensity small sources.  Soft lighting is obtained from larger diffuse sources.  Direct flash gives a hard light, a soft box will turn it into a soft light.

HD (High Definition)

A television standard supplanting the previous 625 lines.  It is sometimes known as FHD (Full HD) 1080p, 1920 x 1080 to distinguish it from the interim standard (HD ready) of 720p, which is 1280 x 720.  The "p" stands for progressive scan, non-interlaced.  These both brought wide screen to the TV, which had an aspect ratio of 4x3 before, and is now 16x9.  They both introduced wide screen so that cinema films could be shown more effectively.  The 1080p standard had 1080 scan lines vertically instead of 720, as well as 1920 horizontal pixels instead of 1280 so it was a higher definition than the both the previous 625 standard and the interim 720p.  The standard has spilled over into photography where cameras can shoot video.  Early cameras shot 600x475 then 800x600.  Modern high end cameras shoot 1080p or even 4K (q.v.).

HDR, High Dynamic Range

An image with a larger bit depth than 8, often 16.  This is explained more in the article on Scene Modes

histogram

A graph showing distribution of data.  It digital photography it refers to a plot showing the distribution of the numbers present of each of the 256 pixel values.  Most editing software will show these as it is a very useful tool in adjusting the tones of an image for optimal impact.  Many cameras can display the histogram which, if present, should be checked for a correct exposure.  If it was not right the shot can be taken again.

hue

There are two main aspects to colour representation in photography:-

  • Hue - the colour (i.e. as in a rainbow), the frequency of the light radiation
  • Saturation, how intense it is; vivid or washed out

If you delve into colour theory there is much more to it than this, but it gets very complicated quite quickly.  Hue is arranged so that the colours form a circle or colour wheel which you can see in a graphics program colour picker.  This one is from Paint Shop Pro.  The wikipedia article contains more information for those who wish to delve deeper.

hyperfocus

In Photography you will normally see this referred to as Hyperfocal distance.  You may be surprised to learn that no photograph is ever perfectly in focus.  If you apply enough magnification it will eventually show blurring.  However, under normal viewing there is a range of acceptable focus and this is referred to as depth of field.  The beginner may assume that the point of sharpest focus is the middle of this range, however it is not.  The plane of sharpest focus is 1/3 of the way into the depth of field.  So when you use a spot focus point, there is twice as much behind in focus as there is in front.  Hyperfocal techniques take account of this.

A common method is to set your focus so that rather than focus on infinity, set the maximum depth of field point at infinity and focus in front of this.  This gives the maximum depth of field.  If nothing in the forground is nearer than the nearest part of the depth of field then the whole scene will be in focus.  This is acheivable with some wide angle lenses.  Some lenses have aids for setting hyperfocal distance marked on the barrel.

Another, less common, method is where the foreground is important and here you set your nearest hyperfocal point on the part of the subject that must be in focus and use the rest of the depth of field for as much behind to be in focus as the light will allow, letting the most distant parts of the scene drift out of focus.  This can be effective in adding depth.

You can read more about this at wikipedia, although I find their initial explanation and definition confusing.  You can read more about using hyperfocal methods here.

[ back to index --- back to glossary ]