Q1. Which part of the camera controls how long light reaches the sensor?

The aperture The processor The dioptre The shutter

Why?

The shutter opens and closes to set the duration of the exposure. The aperture controls how much light passes through the lens at once.

Q2. Your phone has a 1× and a 3× camera. You zoom to 2× for a portrait. What is the phone most likely doing?

Switching to a hidden 2× lens Cropping and enlarging from the 1× camera, sometimes blending in data from the 3× camera Moving its lens elements like a zoom lens Moving the sensor closer to the lens

Why?

Between its fixed lenses, a phone crops from the wider camera and enlarges the result, sometimes combining it with data from another camera. It is still a crop, not an optical zoom.

Q3. You fit a 35mm lens to an APS-C camera with a 1.5× crop factor. Which full-frame focal length gives the same field of view?

23mm 35mm 52.5mm 70mm

Why?

35 × 1.5 = 52.5mm. The lens is still 35mm; the smaller sensor simply records a narrower slice of its image.

Q4. Your friend uses a DSLR and says every photo looks too dark afterwards, even though the viewfinder looked bright. Why might that be?

The optical viewfinder shows the scene, not the exposure the camera will record The mirror darkens the image permanently DSLR sensors are less sensitive than mirrorless sensors The dioptre is set incorrectly

Why?

A DSLR’s optical viewfinder shows the real scene, so it can’t preview brightness. Checking the screen and histogram after the shot is the fix. A mirrorless EVF previews the exposure.

Q5. Through the viewfinder the shooting information looks blurry, but your photos are sharp. What should you adjust?

The focus ring The aperture The screen brightness The dioptre wheel

Why?

The dioptre adjusts the viewfinder display to your eyesight. It has no effect on the photograph’s focus.

Q6. Your camera pauses after a few seconds of burst shooting, and the card light stays on long after you stop. Which card marking should you check first?

The capacity, such as 128GB The headline speed, such as 300MB/s The minimum write rating, such as U3 or V30 The card family, such as SDXC

Why?

Bursts fill the camera’s buffer, which empties at the card’s writing speed. U3 and V30 guarantee a minimum write speed; the headline figure is usually the read speed.

Q7. From the same spot, a Micro Four Thirds camera with a 25mm lens at f/1.4 and a full-frame camera with a 50mm lens at f/2.8 frame the same portrait. Viewed at the same size, how does the depth of field compare? (Advanced)

The Micro Four Thirds image is much shallower They are roughly the same The full-frame image is much deeper It cannot be compared across formats

Why?

Multiply both focal length and f-number by the crop factor of 2: 25mm f/1.4 behaves like 50mm f/2.8 for framing and depth of field. The exposure settings still differ, because f/1.4 lets in two stops more light per unit area.

Q8. A Micro Four Thirds sensor has a crop factor of 2, yet its picture is not simply the centre half of a full-frame picture. Why? (Advanced)

Its lenses use a different mount Its processor stretches the image Crop factor is based on the diagonal, and the sensor is 4:3 rather than 3:2

Why?

Crop factor compares diagonals. Because Micro Four Thirds is a 4:3 shape and full frame is 3:2, the smaller frame is relatively taller, so it is not an exact centre crop.

Quiz

Quiz