Whether you’re shooting film or digital, the mechanics that surround photography can be simplified to a matter of recording light onto a material that is “light-sensitive”. We call this light-sensitive material the “medium”.

Differences in mediums include how sensitive they are to light (also known as its ISO) and how reactive they are to color (this varies amongst brands). The ISO is a standardized number, generally between 50 and 3200, and the higher the ISO number, the faster the medium reacts to – and records – light.

For film cameras, light is recorded to an area of film. In most cases, the film consists of a coating of millions of specks of a light-sensitive material called “silver metal halide”.

For digital cameras, light coming through the lens is recorded in the same fashion, but with a digital light-sensitive chip replacing the silver metal halide film. This digital chip consists of an array of pixels that are sensitive to both light and color information. We measure digital images in mega-pixels (millions of pixels) because this is literally a measurement of how many of these tiny pixels are squeezed onto the digital chip in your camera. A 5-megapixel camera, for instance, has a light-sensitive chip with roughly 5,000,000 pixels on it.

Be sure to read all the articles in this series…

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