Well working our way around the camera, and first of all going back to that pointing and shooting thing. The part you point is the lens, obviously, and the button is the shutter-release or shutter button, commonly (albeit technically incorrectly) known simply as the shutter. What else you have depends on the camera. I'll start by describing the various controls on a digital slr (DSLR) as they're becoming extremely common among those who have an interest in photography.
Close to the shutter button there is usually a wheel, turned by the index finger (i'll call it the finger-wheel whenever i refer to it), which changes settings depending on what mode the camera is in, and what option is currently active. For instance, on my camera this wheel controls either shutter speed or aperture in the appropriate modes, or both (kind of) in shiftable program mode. It also changes focus mode, iso speed, drive mode, and a host of other things depending what i press before i turn it. The finger wheel is complemented by the thumb-wheel on the back of my camera, whose main shooting purpose is to adjust exposure compensation, while it also allows you to go through the images saved on your memory card. Working back from the finger-wheel on the top of my camera we find the information screen, though this may be on the other side, or even use the main screen on your camera. On this screen we can check and adjust settings governing most of the common things we might change, plus info about the shot we're about to take, number of shots remaining, etc. Around the screen there are usually buttons to control the aforementioned modes and these will govern what the two wheels affect when adjusting settings.
To one side of the screen on top of the camera you'll often find a flash hotshoe, commonly with the built-in pop-up flash beneath and in front of it. Then on the opposite side of the top plate, most DSLRs and bridge cameras will have the main exposure mode dial, including the four main modes on any modern camera - M, A or Av, S (sometimes shown as T or Tv) and P, plus normally a host of 'scene modes' such as close.up, portrait, landscape etc and sometimes some other options such as a full-auto-everything 'green' mode, or on canon cameras, DEP or A-DEP. All the abbreviated modes will be covered in a future post, most of the scene modes are pretty self explanatory as to when to use them.
The back of the camera varies so much between brands that there are only so many generalisations i can make. On any digital camera this is the home of the main LCD screen, used for viewing and sometimes composing images. There will usually be buttons and extra controls around this screen to get at extra menus for advanced features, and to control viewing or playback of images. And so to the front. Not much extra is found here in the way of controls etc, though if you look on the lens and lens mount this is where you find switches to control autofocus on SLRs and the catch to remove the lens. Also depending on brand, you may have a depth of field preview button. Check your manual, but if you have one of these it'll make understanding apertures a lot easier. If you're shooting film I'd go as far as to say it's a near essential feature of any film SLR, much more than for digital.
Finally on the bottom of the camera we have things like the battery door, the tripod screw socket (1/4 inch whitworth or UNC if you're into your screw threads or want to make your own supports), and if you're on film and an older camera, the film rewind release catch.
And that's it for the tour. In the words of a well known russian meerkat, Simples.
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