Friday 2 February 2018

exposure - What's "real" and what's "virtual" on a (digital) camera?


I recently upgraded from a standard compact digital camera to one of the newish "halfway cameras", hoping to get a bit better at taking photographs through having a little more control over the settings. Trouble is, the camera has so many settings that I'm having difficulty figuring out which to concentrate on learning about! I think it's best to start with the basic settings, by which I mean those that actually involve something physical in how the photograph is taken, rather than with the vast array of post-processing that the camera seems capable of. So, my question:




Which settings on my camera are "real"? Meaning that they have an effect on the information initially read by the sensor, not post-processing.



(I would be surprised if this varied from camera to camera which is why I haven't specified my exact camera. Also, I'm not asking for an explanation of what the settings do, though a "sound bite" that I can easily remember when I'm out with my camera would be a welcome extra.)


Standard apology: if this question has been asked before, I apologise and would appreciate knowing which question to look for the answers in. Also, I didn't have a clue what to tag this!



Answer



There are several things which are "real" by your terminology. I'll explain at the end why I thought it slightly odd, but... Anyways, they are:



  • ISO

  • Aperture


  • Shutter Speed (Or Time).

  • Focus

  • Mirror Lockup (DSLR only)

  • Image Stabilization


To learn what these are, please see the question: What is the Exposure Triangle.


Everything else, sharpening, saturation, tint, etc is done after the shot is taken.


The term virtual and real are a bad choice, because a virtual image is a specific optics term, I won't bother to explain here. It doesn't mean anything in photography, so... The term real is a counterpart. I got excited for a second when I saw the words real and virtual in a question, but somewhat sad after I realized that it wasn't quite the same...


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