It seems that nothing is cool anymore these days (probably isn't cool to say 'cool' either) unless it's reduced to an acronym. I've even seen a reference to TLAs - wait for it, a Three Letter Acronym!
Every occupation, hobby, process has its own language and also a tendency to reduce long-winded collections of words to something more manageable.
Photography is no exception and I find myself using them as easily as the next guy until I use them with a 'lay person' and am abruptly reminded I'm almost speaking a foreign language. So for the benefit of those who don't have 'the knowledge' I am starting a reference page here.
DPP: Digital Photo Professional. A piece of software provided with Canon cameras to process images - particularly RAW.
DSLR: Digital Single Lens Reflex (Camera). A major jump in the design of cameras was the introduction of through the lens viewing. Initially this was done by having a camera body with two lenses - one for viewing and the other for focusing the image on the film. These were known as Twin Lens Reflex cameras (TLR). There is a Wikipedia article on TLR here and describes the basics relatively better than I could even if "no references ar cited" as of 2010-09-30. Later came the Single Lens Reflex camera where the mirror used to divert the image through the eyepiece is flipped out of the way to allow the light straight through to the sensor/film. There is a pretty comprehensive article in Wikipedia even if that is my personal opinion!
Dynamic Range: Dynamic range in photography describes the ratio between the maximum and minimum measurable light intensities (white and black, respectively). In a lot of cases the range is greater than the sensor in the camera is capable of capturing and the photographer must sacrifice either detail in the shadows or the highlights. Generally it is recommended to shoot for the highlights i.e., don't overexpose the highlights and lose the detail. With RAW images it is possible to gain extra dynamic range and to retrieve some of the detail lost in the shadows.
JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPEG is normally associated with digital images taken with digital cameras. There are varying degrees of compression that can be applied to make file sizes smaller but the greater the compression the more the quality of the image suffers. Saving JPEG files over and over again creates an accumulative effect on the quality. JPEG is one of many formats for computer image files. If you want to know more about the Joint Photographic Experts Group and what they are about then check them out here.
RAW: An unprocessed digital image produced in a digital camera. JPEGs are processed images.
If you choose to shoot JPEG images the camera will process the images based on the settings you have set in your camera. So colour or greyscale or sepia, level of compression, sharpness level, colour temperature (white balance), etc., etc., etc. There is very little you can do if you get your settings wrong. For example if you shoot a tungsten lit scene with daylight setting on your camera there is going to be a very horrible orange tint in your photo unless, of course, you like that sort of thing. :-)
If you shoot RAW then all of those can be set after you shoot and can be tailored to give the best result. In addition there is a level of dynamic range that is greater than available in JPEG images.
Shutter: A shutter in a camera is that mechanism which opens to allow the focused image to be projected onto the film or sensor for a period of time and then shuts again to end the exposure. Shutters in most DSLR cameras are focal plane shutters meaning they are positioned just in front of the film or sensor. Generally they consist of two curtains that travel vertically. The way they work is complicated to explain but essentially when the shutter release button is pressed, the first curtain moves and the sensor/film is exposed and then the second curtain follows to end the exposure.
TLR: Twin Lens Reflex (Camera). A major jump in the design of cameras was the introduction of through the lens viewing. Initially this was done by having a camera body with two lenses - one for viewing and the other for focusing the image on the film. These were known as Twin Lens Reflex cameras (TLR). There is a Wikipedia article on TLR here and describes the basics relatively better than I could even if "no references ar cited" as of 2010-09-30.
