Good luck on this. Groups generally set up in-group language to exclude outsiders; photography sites are notorious for it.
Ideally, participants would use a standard
first-use rule: the first time you use an acronym you spell it out in parentheses. It's good practice, common courtesy and facilitates communication. You only get to know the code words by asking specific questions each time you come across unfamiliar usage; maybe you'll be told to look it up, most likely you'll be ignored and occasionally somebody will let you in on the code as you go along.
I don't know a lot of them, but here are some basic acronyms I've picked up; note that the definitions are mine, and they could have the usual mistakes of the self-educated, so I'm sure more knowledgeable posters will make corrections as needed and/or add to the list:
IQ= image quality, a very broad term for several different characteristics of a particular lens
DOF= depth of field, the amount of detail in front/behind the object that is in relative focus
POV= point of view, where you take the photograph from
FOV=field of view, how much your camera "sees" with a given lens
FL=focal length, the image that a given lens "sees" from side to side, top to bottom, expressed in mm (millimeters), such as 50mm
Av=aperture priority, the camera picks the shutter speed and you set the aperture
Tv=shutter (speed) priority, the camera picks the aperture and you pick the shutter speed
WB=white balance
AWB= auto white balance
M (lens) = manual focus lens
AF=auto focus lens
SDM=Pentax's autofocusing operation using a built-in supersonic motor, see also, the older mechanical "screw drive" system
SR=shake reduction, sometimes called vibration reduction
AE=automatic exposure
AE-L=automatic exposure button
EV=exposure compensation, the general sliding scale aperture/shutter table for various environment lighting conditions
EV= the specific in-camera adjustment to change the camera light balance reading (typically called "stops" and ranging from +2 to -2, or more) with each increment up or down on the scale doubling or halving the amount of light the camera will take in for a given image
RAW (sometimes aRAW for Adobe RAW) = the basic data file that makes up every digital photograph, sometimes equated with a film negative, which has to be converted either in the camera or in a computer into a visual format like jpeg, tiff, etc
PEF= Pentax proprietary RAW format
DNG=Adobe's newest open source RAW format
PP=post processing, amending images either in the camera or with a computer program such as
PS (Photoshop)
JPEG= Joint Photographic Experts Group, an industry-standard compressed digital image format
K-mount=a Pentax standardized lens mount system
K, M,A, F, FA, FA-J, DA, D-FA, DA-L = various Pentax lens types going back decades, also see Ltd. or Limited for Pentax series of "Limited" lenses
sRGB=limited color space most used by websites, and one of two color space settings in newer Pentax cameras
RGB=wider gamut color space used for printing, and one of two color space settings in newer Pentax cameras
Good luck,
Brian
Last edited by FHPhotographer; 12-15-2009 at 12:57 AM.