Acronyms, Initialisations and Terms used in Digital Photography

 

One day I looked at my lens and saw this alphabet soup, what does it all mean? I did dig and find them but in addition Alex Ethridge from the DPReview M4/3 forum agreed to let me post his collection of terms here. It includes acronyms, initilisations and terms commonly seen in reference to digital photography, with the emphasis on what is seen in the forums which may not at times be what manufacturers use. A lot of initialisations can be "forum-speak" as people are generally too lazy to type a whole term or name.

So here's Alex's list with random additions and inclusions of my own, corrections and adjustments made where I see fit, it is my page after all. :-)

........................Last added to or changed 3 Oct 2022........................... Tell me new ones via

From Alex: "I have compiled a more complete list of acronyms than any I have seen available on the 'net anywhere. You might want to copy and paste it in a document for your convenience:"

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

Some numeric stuff to begin with.......
1-inch = Nominal sensor size, actually much smaller (13.2mm x 8.8mm). Aspect ratio 3:2, crop factor 2.7. When speaking of sensor sizes the industry standard is to use the 1950's TV camera Vidicon sizing standard in which the stated dimension is the diameter of the vacuum tube that holds a certain light sensitive area. The real sensor diagonal is roughly 2/3 of the stated inch size. The 1 inch sensor is used in serious quality compact and bridge cameras.
4/3 and M4/3 = again is nominal sensor size of 4/3 inch (actual sensor area 17.2mm x 13mm). Olympus and Panasonic are the main marketers of Micro Four Thirds camera systems.
1/2.3" and 1/1.7" = smaller sized sensors found in the fading market of compact cameras. Smartphone sensors often are smaller still. A huge list of sensor sizes found at https://www.digicamdb.com/sensor-sizes/
2K = Very common cinema projection resolution, typically 2048 x 1080 pixels, but can be 1998 x 1080 and also 2048 x 858 depending on aspect ratio of movie shown.
4K = Video or projection or TV with approx 4,000 (usually 4096) pixels in horizontal resolution, common are UHD-1 at 3840 × 2160, UW4K at 3840 × 1600, and DCI at 4096 × 2160
8K = Video or TV at 7680×4320, in shops now in 2019.
16K = 15360 x 8640, the next marketing push after 8K.



A mode = Aperture priority auto-exposure mode
Av mode = Aperture value, Canon's and Pentax's version of A mode
AA = Anti Aliasing
ACR = Adobe Camera RAW
AEB = Automatic Exposure Bracketing
AF = Autofocus
AF-C = Autofocus continuous
AF Case = A Canon term that refers to custom autofocus presets
AF-F = Autofocus Flexible
AF On = A control button on the back of a camera, while pressed AF continues to adjust.
AF-S = Autofocus, single shot
AF-S = Nikon's designation for autofocus lenses with SWM (silent-wave motor).
AoV = Angle of View
AP = Associated Press; I saw it used once in place of Astronomical Photography.
APS = Advanced Photo System, a discontinued film format that has given rise to designators for two digital sensor sizes. Sometimes used incorrectly to mean APS-C
APS-C = APS Classic, in film, 25.1mm x 16.7mm. In digital sensors, nominally 24mm x 16mm, In practice most makes are slightly smaller than that, Canon's, significantly so. Aspect ratio 3:2, Nominal CF (crop factor) is 1.5, 1.6 for Canon.
APS-H = APS High definition. In film, 30.2mm x 16.7 mm, 16:9 aspect ratio. Canon APS-H digital sensors are 3:2 aspect ratio with a similar diagonal.
APS-P = APS (advanced photo system) Panoramic. A film-only format, 30.2mm x 9.5mm.
Aspherical = A lens that has not got a sperical surface from the usual lens grinding machines, the special aspherical shapes are usually moulded and this can contribute to speckly or onion ring effect in out of focus blur circles as a result of the complex machining of the glass mould.
Auto exposure mode = A shooting mode on a camera which lets the user adjust one of aperture, ISO or shutter speed, in response to which the camera adjusts one or both of the other two settings to maintain the same image brightness.
AWB = Automatic White Balance
AR = Augmented Reality



B&H = B&H Photo and Video, a giant New York retailer.
BB = Best Buy (a retailer)
BBF = Back Button Focus - uses the AF-On button to control focus.
BBIF = Big Birds in Flight (condors? planes? passenger jets? Who knows?)
BCL = Body Cap Lens, can be made to be high or low quality, very thin construction so no more bulk than a body cap.
BG = Black Glass, a term applied to very-high-value neutral-density filters
BI = See BSI
BIF = Birds in Flight
BoB = Bird on Branch (not in flight)
Blinkies = A user-selectable (on/off) setting in many digital cameras that flash the LCD preview display in the over-exposed (aka blown-out) and under-exposed (aka blacked-out) areas of a scene. Some photographers consider blinkies to have an advantage over the histogram in that it shows exactly which areas in a scene may be above or below the sensor's range for the current settings.
Blinkies and the histogram are not an either-or setting; they can be used simultaneously in most cameras.
Note: Blinkies are conservative in most cameras in that, usually, some detail can be brought out in post processing.
Bokeh  = originally meant to mean "quality of the out of focus blur", hence soft or harsh Bokeh. But seems to have been altered now to just mean any out of focus blur, whatever the quality.
Bridge Camera = usually a large SLR looking camera with a small sensor and an inbuilt seriously large zoom range. The "bridge" referring to a functional crossover between compact cameras and DSLR or Mirrorless system cameras.
BSI = refers to Back-illuminated Sensor or BI sensor
B+W = A registered brand, usually used in reference to photographic filters of the B+W brand.



C1 = See C1Pro
C1Pro aka C1 = Capture One Pro is a professional raw converter and image editing software developed by Phase One. It generally delivers more accurate colours than other raw converters. A free "Express" version with some features removed exists for Sony and for Fujifilm cameras.
Canikon = Canon & Nikon, interchangeably (often as opposed to mirrorless)
C-AF = Continuous Autofocus
C&C = Comments and Criticism
CA = Chromatic Aberration
CAF = Continuous Autofocus
CCD = Charge-coupled Device
CDAF = Contrast Detection Autofocus
CES = Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas, early in the year, cameras plus all sorts of electronic gadgets.
CF = Crop Factor
CF = Compact Flash, a type of memory card used in some older cameras but is now slowly falling in popularity due to the more convenient, smaller SD card.
CH = Continuous High
CIC = Cambridge in Color, an instructional website, not a school per se. Not affiliated with Cambridge University. Very good at some things, very wrong at others. Use with care and check other sources.
CIPA = Camera & Imaging Products Association, a committee that sets specification guidelines
CL = Continuous Low
CMYK = CMYK refers to the four inks used in some color printing: cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (black).
CNS = see C/N/S
C/N/S = Canon Nikon Sony
COMA = Coma is a shortcoming in a camera lens where light rays, bumping into the objective far from it's optical axis do not come to focus within the identical image plane. This results in star images near the outer edge of the viewing field seeming to have comet-style tails scattering radially away from it's optical axis (called negative coma) or toward it's axis (called positive coma). COMA is caused when oblique rays of light from an object point pass through different zones of the lens and come to focus at different distances behind the lens, thereby forming a comet-shaped image at the film plane ... Coma, like spherical aberration, can be reduced by stopping down the lens, and the linear size of the image of an object point varies inversely with the f-number squared.
CP+ = Camera and Photo Imaging Show, Yokohama Japan held early each year.
CPL = Circular Polarizer (a filter attached to the front of a lens)
CR = (was used as "including CR on reviews" meaning unknown, possibly Consumer Reports)
CSC = Compact System Camera, those initials are sometimes seen to refer to system cameras like the smaller (less than Full Frame) mirrorless bodies, as opposed to the DSLR larger bodies.
CoC = Circle of Confusion. Takes into account many of the factors used in computing DoF (depth of field)




DC = Defocus Control, an adjustable feature on some Nikkor portrait lenses where the user can control the degree of spherical aberration correction, thus changing Bokeh characteristics from front to back of the subject.
DCI = Digital Cinema Initiatives -- In the movie projection industry, Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI 4K) is the dominant 4K standard.
DFD = Panasonic's Depth From Defocus technology for speeding autofocus.
DiF = Saw it used as Dragonfly in Flight
Diffraction = Loss of Sharpness due to photographing through small hole(s) -- apertures, screens etc.
DMF = Direct Manual Focus
DPR = Digital Photo Recovery
DPR = Digital Photography Review (www.DPReview.com)
DoF = Depth Of Field
DPI = Dots Per Inch (applies to printing output)
DPP = Digital Photo Professional, a free Canon software application that allows users to post process, organize and analyze RAW image files. http://www.learn.usa.canon.com/galleries/galleries/tutorials/dpp4_tutorials.shtml
To download, you will need to input a serial number from a compatible Canon camera.
DR = Dynamic Range
DSA = Dual Super Aspherical lens (Olympus)
DSC = Digital Still Camera
dSLR = Digital Single Lens Reflex (camera)
DSNU = Dark Signal Non-Uniformity
DTC = Digital Teleconverter
DxO = French software and hardware company, mainly known for it raw file conversion software.



E-mount, Sony's MIlC lens mount. and APS-C lenses for it.
EAoV = Equivalent Angle of View. When comparing lenses used on cameras with different sensor sizes, this equivalence to the angle of view equivalence is helpful to the user who is already familiar with the angle of coverage of lenses for 35mm cameras.
EC = Exposure Compensation, tells the camera how much brighter or darker the metered area should be than middle grey.
ED = Extra-low Dispersion lens (Olympus)
EDA = Extra-low Dispersion Aspherical lens (Olympus)
EF = Canon's current full-frame (FF) lens mount
EFC = Electronic Front Curtain Shutter
EFCS = same as EFC, Electronic Front Curtain Shutter
EFL = Equivalent Focal Length (to 35mm)
EF-S = Canon's current APS-C lens mount. EF-S lenses cannot be used on full-frame bodies.
EFoV = Extended Field of View
EFoV = (35mm) Equivalent Field of View
ELVF = Eye-level Viewfinder
EQ = Equivalent
ES = Electronic Shutter
ETC = Extra Table Conversion (video term?)
ETTR = Exposure to the Right
EV = Exposure Value
EVF = Eye-level Viewfinder, sometimes Electronic Viewfinder, depends on context but the latter is more common.
EVIL = Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens (refers those two characteristics as a camera type)



FAS = Used in place of "fully articulated screen".
FCPX = Final Cut Pro X (pronounced "Final Cut Pro Ten") is a professional non-linear video editing application published by Apple Inc. as part of their Pro Apps family of software programs.
F-mount = Nikon's lens mount for both full-frame (FF) and half-frame (DX) DX is Nikon's designation for APS-C
FE = Sony full-frame (FF) lenses for E-mount
FF = Full Frame (usually 35mm film or sensors the same size as the 35mm negative, 24mm x 36mm)
FFL - Fixed Focal Length
FHD = 1080p (1920×1080 px; also known as Full HD or FHD and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1080 horizontal lines of vertical resolution; the p stands for progressive scan, i.e. non-interlaced.
FL = Focal Length
FL-600 = a particular model of flash
FL-LM2 = a particular model of flash
FOMO = Fear Of Missing Out (have I bought the latest and greatest?)
FoV = Field of View
How to calculate camera-to-subject distance to maintain same field of view on the subject: 500mm at 500 feet, 400mm at 400 feet, 200mm at 200 feet, 100mm at 100 feet, and so on
Note: A lens's designated focal length is accurate only at infinity focus and is slightly shorter at lesser focus points.
FP = Focal Plane
FP = Focus Peaking
FPN = Fixed-pattern Noise
FPS = Focal Plane Shutter
FPS = Frames per second
FT = Four Thirds
FW = Firmware



GAS = Gear Acquisition Syndrome, a "psychosis" of people who can't stop wanting and/or buying more gear
GWC = Guy With Camera, used to label those creeps suspiciously shooting children



Half-frame = refers to film or sensor sizes approximately half the area of full frame.
HD = High Definition (Olympus)
HDR = High Dynamic Range
HG = High Grade (usually referring to lenses, see SHG)
HHHR = Hand Held High Resolution, related to HR below. Also see TRHR and TPHR for tripod high resolution.
HLG = Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG) is a high dynamic range (HDR) standard that was jointly developed by the BBC and NHK. The HLG standard is royalty-free and was approved as ARIB STD-B67 by the Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB). HLG is compatible with standard dynamic range (SDR) displays.
HR = High Refractive index (Olympus)
HR = High Resolution - forum abbreviation used for those multi-shot pixel shift images.
HSL = Hue, Saturation and Luminance
HSS = High Speed Sync
HSV = Hue, Saturation and Value (brightness Value)
HTP = Highlight Tone Priority
Hyperfocal Distance = the focus distance that attains acceptable focus for both near and distant (infinity) detail.



iAuto =  In Olympus at least is a totally automatic mode where the camera tries to guess what you are framing and then applies the appropriate Scene Mode, if it can't undertsand what's in the frame then it defaults to the regular P mode.
IBIS = In Body Image Stabilization
ILC = Interchangeable Lens Camera
ICYMI = In Case You Missed It