Aperture: The opening that lets light travel to the camera’s interior where the sensor is placed.

Digital zoom: The process of blowing up a part of the picture. This function that is performed within the digital camera leads to a loss of picture quality.

JPEG: The term used to describe the compression of a digital image. This compression ratio was fixed by the Joint Photo Experts Group to reduce the picture size. However, the reduction leads to a considerable loss of picture quality.

Megapixels: An image that is made up of one million pixels.

Memory: The storage space provided within digital cameras to store pictures.

1 MP camera: This is a camera that can shoot an image which is made up of one million pixels.

Optical Zoom: This is used to change the focal length and magnification of the lens.

Pixels: It is a contraction of the term PIcture Element with a numerical value between 0 and 255. Each pixel is made up of three color channels.

Pixel Count: This is the number of pixels that go into making each image.

PPI: This is the acronym of pixels per inch, and is used to describe the picture quality. The higher the number of pixels per inch the better is the picture.

RAW/NEF: This is an uncompressed image as shot by the camera. The RAW picture format has been introduced by Canon. Nikon calls this format as NEF.

Sensor: The digital strip that receives light. It performs the same role that the negative does in the conventional camera.

Shutter Speed: The duration for which the camera’s aperture opens to allow the light to stream in.

TIFF: This is the short form of Tagged Image File Format. There is no loss of information in this format. But the file sizes are very large.

White Balance: The setting used to ensure white light. A digital camera normally has settings for sunlight, shade, electronic flash, fluorescent lighting and tungsten lighting. You need to adjust them before shooting.