What are:gain,iris,shutter and white balance on camera? Thx?

I neeed the definitions of those for my exam. thank you for your help

What are:gain,iris,shutter and white balance on camera? Thx?
First of all, tell your teacher that exams are BS. Not to offend you or anything, but everything I know I learned on my own time, and my TV class is a waste of time. Anyways, now that I'm done ranting, on to your question.



Gain is an adjustment for picture brightness. It's electronic, so it doesn't effect your motion, DOF, etc. but if you add a lot of gain, there will be noticeable video noise.



Iris (or aperture, both terms are used), is the thing that controls the opening of your camera. It's not the actual opening, but it's thing that adjusts the size of the opening. A smaller opening (a bigger F number) will reduce the amount of light and increase depth of field, while a larger opening (a smaller F number) increases the amount of light and reduces your DOF.



Shutter is the thing that controls the amount of time your imager (CCD or film) is exposed to light. On video cameras (which is most likely what you're using, unless your school can afford film ones), the shutter is electronic. Shutter speeds are indicated in fractions of a second, but often times, you will only see one number. For example, it might say SS 30, but it means 1/30 sec. Faster shutter speeds create jerkier motion, unless frame speed is sped up as well (if your teacher didn't talk about frame rates, then don't even worry about this, as it's probably not on the test).



White balance is the setting on the camera to calibrate the color white. "White" will look different under types of light (i.e. bluer, greener, etc.), so this setting tells the camera which color is white, so all the other colors are "balanced." If you don't do this, your colors will look funky.



Okay so that's that. I hope I gave enough info that you could pick out whatever you needed and whatever you didn't need. Remember, if you get a bad grade on the test, it's not your fault, it's because exams are retarded. Hope this helps!