Bison Bud

I for one hate the way the three and four letter acronyms are used so generally and especially for technical references which can make each technical discipline seem to have it's own specialized language. Frankly, I seldom know what their talking about when such abbreviations are initially used, but eventually come to terms with them. However, there is one commonly used in digital photography that I've never quite figured out and although I know it's a stupid question, I've decided to ask for clarification here. Virtually every digital camera I have owned creates and saves it's photos in a folder titled "DCIM." Can someone educate me as to what this 4 letter acronym actually stands for please? I really feel rather stupid asking, but I think that after dealing with it for years now, I should make an effort to understand what it is actually trying to tell me. Thanks, good luck and good shooting to all.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Digital Camera Images

I didn't know 'til I Googled just now 😊

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CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Did you google like: what does dcim mean

Anyone that responds will have done this action for you and will simply regurgitate the results they found. Acronyms can be annoying. But, with the cumulative knowledge of human kind available with just a few keystrokes, acronyms are no longer the annoyance they once were.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Regurgitation completed while you were typing.

I love Mr Google! He never gives me any attitude with his responses 😉
https://www.howtogeek.com/204228/why-does-every-camera-put-photos-in-a-dcim-folder/

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Bison Bud

I guess I should have Googled it, but I did think that the "M" would stand for something on it's own. I think "DCI" would have made more sense and part of my point here is that there doesn't seem to be much consistency in how these abbreviations are created. Thanks for the quick responses.

dpfoto Loc: Cape Coral, FL

DCIM is Digital Camera Images... So, what is the "M" for?

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I'll guess the "M" stands for media.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

You might want to print this out and post in near your monitor.


AE – Automatic Exposure
AE-L – Automatic Exposure Lock
AF – Autofocus
AF-A – Area Autofocus (Nikon)
AF-C – Continuous Autofocus (Nikon)
AF-S – Single Autofocus (Nikon)
AFS – Silent Autofocus
AV – Aperture Priority (Canon)
A – Aperture Priority (Nikon)
B
B – Bulb
BIF – Bird in Flight
B&W – Black and White

C
CF – Compact Flash (a memory card format)
CMYK – Cyan, Magenta, Yellow Black
CSC – Compact System Camera
CWB – Custom White Balance
D
DOF – Depth of Field
DNG – Digital Negative Graphic
DPI – Dots per Inch
DSLR – Digital Single Lens Reflex
DX – Crop Sensor Format
E
EC – Exposure Compensation
ED – Extra Low Dispersion Glass
EF – Electronic Focus
EF – Canon Full Frame Sensor Format Lenses
EF-S – Canon Crop Sensor Format Lenses
ETTR – Expose to the Right
ETTL – Expose to the Left
EV – Exposure Value
EVF – Electronic Viewfinder
EXIF – Exchangeable Image File Format

F
FF – Full Frame
FOV – Field of View
FPS – Frames per Second
FX – Full Frame Format

G
GB – Gigabyte
GIF – Graphics Interchange Format
H
HDR – High Dynamic Range
HFD – Hyperfocal Distance
HSM – Hyper Sonic Motor (the same as USM, but for Sigma)
HSS – High Speed Sync
I
IF – Internal Focusing
IPTC – International Press Telecommunications Council
IR – Infrared
IS – Image Stabilisation
ISO – International Standards Organisation
IQ – Image Quality
J
JPG or JPEG – Joint Photographic Experts Group
K
KB – Kilobyte
L
LCD – Liquid Crystal Display
LED – Light Emitting Diode
LR – Adobe Lightroom
LTE – Long Time Exposure



M
M – Manual
MB – Megabyte
MF – Manual Focus
MLU – Mirror Lock-up
MUP – Mirror Lock-up (Nikon)
MP – Megapixels
MS – Memory Stick
N
ND Filters – Neutral Density Filters
NR – Noise Reduction
O
OCF – Off Camera Flash
OCR – Optical Character Recognition
OEM – Original Equipment Manufacturer
OOC – Out of Camera
OOF – Out of Focus
OS – Optical Stabilisation or Operating System
OVF – Optical Viewfinder
OZ – Optical Zoom
P
P – Programmed Autoexposure
PNG – Portable Network Graphics
PP – Post Processing
PPI – Pixels per Inch
PQ – Picture Quality
PS – Adobe Photoshop
PSE – Adobe Photoshop Elements
Q
R
RGB – Red, Green, Blue
S
SD – Secure Digital (a memory card format)
SDHC – Secure Digital High Capacity (a memory card format)
SLR – Single Lens Reflex (same as DSLR, but referring only to film cameras)
SP or S – Shutter Priority
sRGB – Standard RGB Colour Space
SS – Shutter Speed
SWM – Silent Wave Motor


T
TB – Terabyte
TC – Teleconverter
TIFF or TIF – Tagged Image File Format
TOG – Photographer
TTL – Through the Lens
TV – Time Value (Shutter priority mode for Canon and other brands)
U
USB – Universal Serial Bus
USM – Ultra Sonic Motor
UWA – Ultra Wide-angle
V
VR – Vibration Reduction
W
WA – Wide-angle
WB – White Balance
X
XQD – XQD (a memory card format)
Y
Z

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I'm glad that's a standard acronym so I always know where to look for my pictures, regardless of the brand of camera.

Morning Star Loc: West coast, North of the 49th N.

DCIM - Data center infrastructure management
So now I know what the acronym becomes when written out....
exact meaning still a puzzle!

Bison Bud

That's a good point!

Bison Bud

Wow, thank you for that! There's quite a few on here that I would have had to look up.

rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA

I think it's good that cameras tend to share the same acronyms, including "DCIM". This makes it easier for the user to transition from one camera to another. Imagine borrowing or renting a camera and being confronted with an entirely unfamiliar set of acronyms! When I pick up a camera new to me, I know what to expect from the generated folder "DCIM" without the need to look it up in the manual.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

In my case it's probably for "Mediocre"

johnec Loc: Lancaster county, PA

Well that throws a monkey wrench into the mix What happened to "Digital Camera Images"?