Aperture

The aperture stop adjusts to control the amount of light that reaches the film or image sensor. In combination with shutter speed, the aperture size regulates the film's degree of exposure to light. Typically, a fast shutter speed requires a larger aperture to ensure enough light exposure, and a slow shutter speed requires a smaller aperture to avoid over exposure.

Composition

The composition is the plan, placement or arrangement of the elements in a photograph.

The rule of thirds is a composition guideline commonly followed by photographers. The objective is to keep the subject and areas of interest out of the center of the image, by placing them near one of the lines that would divide the image into three equal columns and rows, ideally near the intersection of those lines.

Megapixel

Pixel is an abbreviation for PICture Element. A pixel is the smallest element in a digitized image—one small dot among many that make up a digital image. A megapixel is a million pixels. The more pixels in an image, the better the quality.

Panorama

A Panorama is a broad, extended view of a landscape or other scene. Some cameras have a mode that produces a wider or taller image than its standard, thus creating a panoramic image.

Zoom

A zoom lens on a film camera is one that can be adjusted to a wide range of focal lengths in affect giving the user many lenses in one. On a digital camera the zoom feature increases the size of the pixels by interpolating between them, the equivalent to cropping a picture. The image doesn’t physically get any closer.