Modern photography can be a very complex and involved venture. There is so much to learn and so many terms, topics and techniques that it is enough to make anyone say “All that for a photo??”
Below is a series of questions to test your Digital Photographic knowlegde. There will be some true and false questions and also multiple choice. And even a few where you must supply the entire answer. The first section – “Basics” – will have correct answers scored at 5 points each. The second “Intermediate” section will have questions all given 10 points for the correct answers. Finally, the “Advanced” questions will be awarded 15 points a piece. The correct answers will be below. Good LUCK!!
BASICS
1 – If you are shooting a photo and want to get a greater depth of field in the image, would you shoot at:
- F2.8
- F16
- F7.1
- F4
2 – When shooting handheld, IS, VC, VR, (Vibration Controls) will help make camera shake from your hands much less noticeable than without the vibration control turned on.
- TRUE
- FALSE
3 – On camera pop up flash is best used when:
- In dark room
- Subject is backlit and you want to fill shadows in with flash
- You desire soft, pleasing light
- All else fails
4 – As a rule, Shutter speed should be at least 1 / FOCAL LENGTH when shooting handheld. An example here would be if shooting at 100mm, your Shutter speed should be at least 1/100 to help avoid camera shake.
- TRUE
- FALSE
5 – When shooting in Manual Mode, which of the following controls the exposure of your capture?
- Aperture
- Shutter Speed
- ISO
- All of the above
6 – Resolution of an image describes:
- The Quality of the image
- The clarity of an image
- The size of the image in pixels
- Color and Contrast of the image
7 – A tripod is an essential piece of equipment for night photography
- TRUE
- FALSE
8 – The “Nifty Fifty” describes:
- A shutter speed technique
- A term used to describe 50 year old Photographers
- A 50mm f1.8 lens
- The focal length that is best for sports
9 – A Professional, Full Frame camera has greater depth of field than a crop sensor camera body
- TRUE
- FALSE
10 – A macro lens is a lens that:
- Is Very small in size
- Creates great bokeh
- Is used for extreme close ups
- Makes you a pro!
INTERMIDIATE
11 – Panning is a technique used to freeze the subject yet allow surrounding area to be blurred out as the subject moves in the scene. A shutter speed that may be used would be:
- 1/500th
- 1/100th
- 1/30th
- Bulb Mode
12 – Shooting flash through a shoot thru umbrella will soften the light for a more pleasing light. Placing this light closer to the subject will create a more hard light.
- TRUE
- FALSE
13 – Pressing the shutter release halfway will activate the autofocus mechanism in your camera. You can, however, put this function on another button on your camera’s rear side. What is the term used for this method of focus?
- Manual Focus Activation
- Back Button Focus
- Linear Focus Mode
- NONE OF THE ABOVE
14 – Dust on your image sensor can be best removed by blowing on the sensor with:
- Compressed Air
- Your Mouth
- Rocket Blower
- NOTHING – send in for service!
15 – When shooting at f5.6 and you need twice the amount of light, simply change your Aperture to f2.8 – half of f5.6!
- TRUE
- FALSE
16 – When in Aperture Priority, adjusting EXPOSURE COMPENSATION will alter:
- ISO
- Depth of Field
- Shutter Speed
- Aperture
17 – Mirror UP (Mup) release mode in a DSLR helps with:
- Shutter Speed quickness
- Quiet Shutter Release
- Image Sharpness
- Shooting in the Dark
18 – If your Camera is set at ISO 100, how many stops of light would 1600 be up the line?
- Four
- Three
- Six
- Five
19 – When setting the color space in your camera and you shoot RAW, you should ALWAYS use:
- sRGB
- Adobe RGB
- ProPhoto
- Who cares!?!?
20 – Luminosity masks allow the photographer to”
- Blend exposures manually
- Adjust Contrast
- Dodge and Burn With Guidance
- All of the above
ADVANCED
21 – Your camera tells you the proper exposure is with a 1/500th shutter speed. You now attach a TEN STOP ND filter. What shutter speed would you now need to get that same exposure but with 10 stops of light blocked and taken away?
- 1/5th
- 4 Seconds
- 1 Second
- 2 Seconds
22 – You are doing a product shoot using manual flash. Everything looks good exposure wise but you want more depth of field. You’re at f5.6 and want to go to f16. Assuming your camera is setup at ⅓ increments, how many “clicks” do you have to stop down on your camera and how many stops of power must you add to your flash?
- 12 clicks and 3 stops
- 9 clicks and 2 stops
- 6 clicks and 2 stops
- 9 clicks and 3 stops
23 – When working in Lightroom a RAW file, what is the best color space to be working in?
- sRGB
- Adobe RGB
- ProPhoto
- None of the Above
24 – When using the PEN TOOL in Photoshop, to turn this path into a selection immediately, you can use the two key combo of: (You will need to know this one!)
25 – When creating a Frequency Separation group in PHOTOSHOP, what BLEND MODE should the TEXTURE layer be set in?
- Overlay
- Linear Light
- Subtraction
- Multiply
ANSWERS (Don't CHEAT!!)
BASICS
#1 – F16
The smaller the Aperture, the greater the depth of field. Since the larger number is the smaller aperture, F16 would be correct since smaller apertures will give you greater depth of field
#2 – TRUE
Image Stabilization, Vibration Reduction, etc – can help you substantially when hand holding your camera when using shutter speeds that normally would cause camera shake.
#3 – Subject is backlit and you want to fill shadows in with flash
An example here would be when shooting with Sun behind Subject. The pop up flash could be used to fill in shadows.
#4 – TRUE
1 over the focal length is a good rule of thumb when shooting. However, with the advent of the above mentioned Vibration Control tech, shooters are able to shoot at shutter speeds slower than this rule dictates and still get good results.
#5 – All Of The Above
When shooting in Manual Mode, YOU control all aspects of the exposure triangle. When you change one, you must change the other to compensate in order to keep the exposure the same.
#6 – The Size of the image in Pixels
Resolution is simply Pixel height by Pixel Width. So a 24 megapixel image would have a resolution of 6000×4000, for example.
#7 – True
For night photography, a Tripod is absolutely something that is needed to create images in extremely low light. Shutter speeds are too slow to hand hold.
#8 – A 50mm f1.8 lens
The standard f1.8 50mm lens is known as the “Nifty Fifty” and is a lens many say that you should learn with. It is not expensive and it also is much sharper than the kit lenses that come with your camera.
#9 – FALSE
A full frame camera has a much more SHALLOW depth of field than a crop sensor simply because of the size of the sensor. In short, the smaller the sensor, the greater the depth of field and that is why cell phones have great DOF.
#10 – Is Used In Extreme Close Ups
A True Macro lens produces a reproduction ratio of 1:1 and can focus unusually close to the subject.
#11 – 1/30th
While 1/30th isn't the only speed that can be used, the other options here simply would not apply.
#12 – FALSE
When placing a light source closer to the subject, you will always will soften the light. The closer, the softer. The further the harder.
#13 – Back Button Focus
This one is pretty much self explanatory. The AE-L/AF-L button can often be used as the back button focus button.
#14 – Rocket Blower
Compressed Air can release some liquid when initially spraying so they should be avoided when cleaning an image sensor.
#15 – FALSE
f2.8 t0 f4 would be half the light. Going to f5.6 would be 1/4th the light that f2.8 collects.
#16 – Shutter Speed
The one exception here would be IF you had AUTO ISO set. If that was the case, the ISO will change when exposure COMP is changed.
#17 – Image Sharpness
This is a tricky one. There are only some shutter speeds where this is going to help and they tend to be slower speeds around 1/2-1/30th of a second. Much faster shutter speeds and much slower speeds with not benefit from MUP mode.
#18 – Four
100 to 200 is one stop. 200 to 400 is two. 400 to 800 is three and finally 800 to 1600 is 4 Stops of Light.
#19 – Who Cares!?!?
This is a trick question. First of all, you can choose from sRGB and RGB – ProPhoto is not an option in camera. When shooting RAW, the color space does not matter at all. It only has bearing when shooting JPEG.
#20 – All Of The Above
Luminosity Masks allow you to do all of these adjustments and MUCH more!
#21 – 2 Seconds
That's just the right answer! Nothing else really!
#22 – 9 Clicks and 3 Stops
Since 1/3 stops are used, 9 clicks simply means 3 stops. Basic math. Much more simple than many think!
#23 – None Of The Above
Lightroom does NOT give you a choice as to what color space you work in. Lightroom works in a variation of ProPhoto called Melissa RGB. Only when you export to an external editor such as Photoshop you choose a color space to work in.
#24 – Command / CTRL + ENTER (RETURN)
This is a very handy shortcut to know when using the PEN TOOL to create selections quickly.
#25 – Linear Light
Frequency Separation is very powerful when used with retouching images. This is a very detail oriented question for the geeks out there that just have to know how things work!
YOUR SCORE!
With a possible 225 points total (50 points for 1-10, 100 points for 11-20 and 75 more points for 21-25.
What did you score? Post in the comments section below!
Great quiz. It was a lot of fun to take. I am going to have to respectfully disagree with you on question 3. I understand this is subjective, so this is more out of fun and creating discussion then a real disagreement My answer is when all else fails, but even then I don’t think I would use pop up flash. If the subject is backlit, I would place the strong light source behind them out of view, expose for the subject and blow out the background.
But then you are not using the flash – and the question asks BEST USE for Flash 🙂
Thanks for your reply 🙂
SHame on me…. only 15
Great quiz Brian! I’m certainly glad I’ve stumbled upon improvephotography.com, it looks like it’s going to be a great help going forward. Keep up the good work guys.
Not sharing my score,, but boy did zip learn a lot! Great quiz! Thanks.
I did better than I thought with a 120. I have the basics down and most of the intermediate
I did better than I thought with a 120. I have the basics down and most of the intermediate. Now if I could remember this stuff when I’m shooting.
180… was doing great till the Advanced section. Missed the last 3, as I’m not familiar enough with PS… I guess I know what’s next for me… thanks for putting this together.
#4 1/focal length is especially true for single length lenses. IMO if your 25-500mm lens is set at 30 mm focal length you probably should still use 1/500 not 1/30. The displacement of the image on the sensor when using a long lens is one reason to use a faster speed (even small shakes are more apparent). But even with it set to a short focal length you still need to overcome the weight and awkwardness of really long zooms. Had a student w/a $8k – 4 pound lens who couldn’t understand why there was so much blur in her images.
Who makes a 25-500mm lens outside of those small cameras??
Apparently, the seemingly-zillions of resources I’ve consulted in pursuit of my growing passion for photography as a hobby has produced some tangible results. I actually scored 205.
Thanks for a quiz that covered lots of areas, Brian. Very well done.
This is extremely helpful info!! Very good work. Everything is very interesting to learn and easy to understood. Thank you for giving information.
Nice quiz! Similar to other comments, I don’t really work in Photoshop much so I didn’t get those advanced questions. New Years resolution tho! Just had a couple of questions that I respectfully disagreed with:
3: I saw your reply to another comment on this question. Just my snarky .02 lol… Given that many prosumer-pro cameras don’t even have pop-up flash, and that it’s really the harshest, worst flash to use, my opinion would be “as a last resort.” The “best use of” that particular flash is to not use it 😉
15: Your answer seems to indicate starting at 2.8 and going to 5.6, but the question is starting at 5.6, and asking for MORE light…going from 5.6 to 2.8. So the answer should be TRUE, should it not?
Again, thanks for doing this. Helps me identify areas of improvement 🙂
It is a trick question. The answer is just showing that going from f2.8 to f4.0 IS DOUBLING the light so it works in reverse. Going from f5.6 to f2.8 is not doubling the light – it would be 4 times the amount of light. SO in the answer I am showing that 2.8 is NOT double the light but 2.8 is half of 5.6 mathematically – but light doesn’t work that way in stops so the answer is correct.
And on the question about fill flash, this is multiple choice. It is asking what is the best choice of the options given. That is, after all, the nature of multiple choice questions – we must work with the choices given! 😉
scored 20. Don’t know much about photoshop
Scored 70. Good to test your theoretical knowledge.
Scored 150. I have learned the majority of what I know about photography thanks to this website. I’ve found it to be a great resource.
Scored 90. Not bad, i would guess. Learned a few things and good reminder that there is ALWAYS new stuff to learn. Don’t get stuck were you are.
Great ! Your blog has a lot of interesting information for everyone, thank you for sharing
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Bad info on #9. A 50mm f2 lens will have the same depth of field on either sensor. It will have a wider field of view on a larger sensor though. If you compare equivalent lenses the larger sensor will have less depth only because you’re using a longer lens to achieve the same angle of view. Sensor size ZERO effect on depth of field. For example, a 90 mm lens is a great portrait lens on a 35mm/full frame camera. On a 4×5 camera it’s a wide angle, but has the same depth of field as it does on the little full frame sensor.
Thank you for giving them this great knowledge, really thank you for sharing, hope you will have such great posts as this more.
100. I have an eye for photography but need to enhance my technical skills so I can more confidently capture moments when they arise.
Yes, the article I was looking for. Your article gives me another approach on the subject. I hope to read more articles from you.