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The word "photography" is derived from the Greek language: photo means light and graph(on) means written. Photography is defined by the Webster and other dictionaries as the art or process of producing images on a sensitized surface by the action of radiant energy and especially light. This is hot a rule or an immutable eternal law, but simply the technical and scientific definition of the term "photography," used in English and many other languages. Photography has changed, but its definition is still valid. A digital camera obtains images by the action of light on a light sensitive surface. The images are photographs, although the action of light is physical and hot chemical. Are images created by a computer photographs? It is agreed that slides or prints corrected or modified by a computer are photographs. On the contrary, images made by drawing or painting without using a camera or light are hot photographs. The digital compositions containing both photographic and non-photographic material form a debatable gray area. The main issue here is not the nomenclature, but the eligibility for photographic exhibitions. Contests must have rules to be meaningful and exhibitions need standards. However, the border between photography and digitally created graphic art is diffused. Professionals choose the imaging technique most likely to please the client. Amateurs are free to make images by any process they enjoy.

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Exposure and rendering Camera controls are inter-related. The total amount of light reaching the film plane (the "exposure") changes with the duration of exposure, aperture of the lens, and on the effective focal length of the lens (which in variable focal length lenses, can force a change in aperture as the lens is zoomed). Changing any of these controls can alter the exposure. Many cameras may be set to adjust most or all of these controls automatically. This automatic functionality is useful for occasional photographers in many situations. The duration of an exposure is referred to as shutter speed, often even in cameras that don't have a physical shutter, and is typically measured in fractions of a second. Aperture is expressed by an f-number or f-stop (derived from focal ratio), which is proportional to the ratio of the focal length to the diameter of the aperture. If the f-number is decreased by a factor of \sqrt 2, the aperture diameter is increased by the same factor, and its area is increased by a factor of 2. The f-stops that might be found on a typical lens include 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, 32, where going up "one stop" (using lower f-stop numbers) doubles the amount of light reaching the film, and stopping down one stop halves the amount of light. Exposures can be achieved through various combinations of shutter speed and aperture. For example, f/8 at 8 ms (1/125th of a second) and f/5.6 at 4 ms (1/250th of a second) yield the same amount of light. The chosen combination has an impact on the final result. The aperture and focal length of the lens determine the depth of field, which refers to the range of distances from the lens that will be in focus. A longer lens or a wider aperture will result in "shallow" depth of field (i.e. only a small plane of the image will be in sharp focus). This is often useful for isolating subjects from backgrounds as in individual portraits or macro photography. Conversely, a shorter lens, or a smaller aperture, will result in more of the image being in focus. This is generally more desirable when photographing landscapes or groups of people. With very small apertures, such as pinholes, a wide range of distance can be brought into focus, but sharpness is severely degraded by diffraction with such small apertures. Generally, the highest degree of "sharpness" is achieved at an aperture near the middle of a lens's range (for example, f/8 for a lens with available apertures of f/2.8 to f/16). However, as lens technology improves, lenses are becoming capable of making increasingly sharp images at wider apertures. Image capture is only part of the image forming process. Regardless of material, some process must be employed to render the latent image captured by the camera into a viewable image. With slide film, the developed film is just mounted for projection. Print film requires the developed film negative to be printed onto photographic paper or transparency. Digital images may be uploaded to an image server (e.g., a photo-sharing web site), viewed on a television, or transferred to a computer or digital photo frame.