ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the components of camera style, the elements of videography and cinematography that record an image and affects producers' understanding of it. In simplest terms, videography designates the characteristics of the video camera, while cinematography refers to those of the film camera. The earliest "camera," the camera obscura as it was named in the seventeenth century, had no lens at all. Camera lens, the descendant of the camera obscura's hole-in-a-wall, permits a variety of manipulations—a catalog of optical controls that the camera operator may exercise. The three conventional types of focal length are: wide angle, normal, and telephoto. The wide-angle lens gives the viewer a wide view of the scene, and it also heightens the illusion of depth in the image. The telephoto lens gives a narrower view of the scene than a wide-angle lens but magnifies the scene. Technology, economics, and aesthetic convention blend together in the director of photography's and/or director's manipulation of camera style.
