When did the shutter time start being called "speed"?

[odds]

...There are many terms in many fields that are not super precise...

Like "Lens speed" and "Fast lens"

[xpatUSA]

And then there's:



... just to keep us guessing ...

Pardon the dust.

[DanK]

Many words have multiple meanings, sometimes related but sometimes not related at all. We all know precisely what a "fast" lens is, even though the meaning doesn't technically have to do with speed, excecpt indirectly. This is what linguists call polysemy, and it's a major reason why becoming truly fluent in a second language is so hard.

The linguist John McWhorter recently wrote a wonderful New York Times newletter posting about this. Here is one of his examples:

This is beautifully illustrated with my favorite example: “pick up.” Its basic meaning is to lift something. But we also pick up our kids from school. Someone might pick someone up at a bar. You pick up a disease, or someone says you’ve picked up the habit of overusing certain salty words....A car picks up speed; a cocktail picks up your spirits; we pick up a sound from far off; we pick up where we left off.

He happened to use what is called a phrasal verb in this example--pick and up functioning jointly as a verb--but there countless examples of polysemy with single verbs and nouns. "Cut", for example, can mean either slice or reduce (cut a price). I recently cut a finger with a mat knife and had to go to a clinic for stitches. I could have used slice instead of cut, but it would make no real sense to say that I "reduced" my finger. (I didn't lop a piece off.)


To bring this back to the topic: I think referring to fast shutter speeds and fast lenses is perfectly fine. I've never met a photographer confused by the first, and the only people I've encountered who are confused by the second are newbies.

[xpatUSA]

...

To bring this back to the topic: I think referring to fast shutter speeds and fast lenses is perfectly fine. I've never met a photographer confused by the first, and the only people I've encountered who are confused by the second are newbies.

... and the topic's title question is: "When did the shutter time start being called "speed"?"

It seems that it could have always been that way.

[DanK]

... and the topic's title question is: "When did the shutter time start being called "speed"?"

It seems that it could have always been that way.

True, but the topic drifted away from that to include more, I think.

[Tronhard]

Taking the lighter tone on this theme is a great antidote to moving 900kg of stones with 10li paint pails and cleaning the outside of my house, so actually I DO have something better to do, but this is way more entertaining!

Have you anything better to do? I sincerely hope the answer is yes.

[xpatUSA]

I was taught the term shutter speed over 50 years ago when I first started into serious photography by the commercial photographer who mentored me.

There are many terms in many fields that are not super precise, but in common use, so we live with them because everyone understands what they mean. If you look at electronic shutters (no mechanical elements), should we call this polling the sensor, rather than shutter speed???

In a domain where "exposure" is now the term used by "most of us" but not me to mean the brightness of a post-processed image, I'm sure that electronic shutters will continue to have speed.

[Tronhard]

I think the term 'Exposure' is firmly linked to how much light is being delivered to the sensor - After all, the term Exposure Triangle is firmly embedded in our terminology. Personally, I certainly have not used the term exposure in association with the PP process.

Perhaps a good alternative to the term shutter speed would simply be Exposure Time, or ET. To me the shutter determines the period over which the sensor is exposed to the light energy from the subject - on an electronic shutter it would indicated the period within which the light wells are fired up to record light energy.

Considering exposure is often determined by EV's and that terminology is used on the exposure compensation controls, it would provide some sense of consistency. Another one might be Exposure Period, or EP...

In a domain where "exposure" is now the term used by "most of us" but not me to mean the brightness of a post-processed image, I'm sure that electronic shutters will continue to have speed.

[xpatUSA]

I think the term 'Exposure' is firmly linked to how much light is being delivered to the sensor

ExACKly, Trev.

From the world of ISO we know that Exposure (Hm) equals luminance times exposure-time over (f-number squared) times a constant.

- After all, the term Exposure Triangle is firmly embedded in our terminology. Personally, I certainly have not used the term exposure in association with the PP process.

Not a great fan of the Exposure Triangle though. It is one of the many misleading make-it-easy-for-the-punter memes that exist in the modern lexicon. A bit like thinking that the ISO setting actually affects the sensitivity of the sensor.

Perhaps a good alternative term shutter speed would simply be Exposure Time, or ET. To me the shutter determines the period over which the sensor is exposed to the light energy from the subject - on an electronic shutter it would indicated the period within which the light wells are fired up to record light energy.

Agreed!

Considering exposure is often determined by EV's and that terminology is used on the exposure compensation controls, it would provide some sense of consistency. Another one might be Exposure Period, or EP...

Indeed: on my battery-less Sekonic 398 there is a scale of EV. And there are cameras from the past that let you set an EV and twirl a ring to step though all the shutter/aperture combinations that "equal" that EV.

Always in manual - no such thing as "ISO" - na ni na ni na

[Tronhard]

Hi Ted

I feel there are two perspectives to this terminology. The super-precise technical discussion, and the use of terms in the vernacular. This is often the case with discussions of a technical nature in fora such as this - and that is fine as long as one defines the context in which the terms will be used.

I teach a lot of photography courses to newbies, and in that context I go with the vernacular use of terms like shutter speed and exposure triangle because that is what my students will encounter in their engagement with documents, videos and interactions with your average photographer. To go outside that would create even more confusion and probably land them in discussions similar to this one, when they are not within that technical constituency.

[xpatUSA]

Hi Ted

I feel there are two perspectives to this terminology. The super-precise technical discussion, and the use of terms in the vernacular. This is often the case with discussions of a technical nature in fora such as this - and that is fine as long as one defines the context in which the terms will be used.

A rarity indeed ... someone who knows what the plural of "forum" is and actually uses it !!!

I teach a lot of photography courses to newbies, and in that context I go with the vernacular use of terms like shutter speed and exposure triangle because that is what my students will encounter in their engagement with documents, videos and interactions with your average photographer. To go outside that would create even more confusion and probably land them in discussions similar to this one, when they are not within that technical constituency.

Of course.

I personally think that the digital "ISO knob" should have been labeled "Noise" ...

Waiter: "More noise in your image, Sir?" ... just crank the ISO setting ...

[Tronhard]

Again, in the the vernacular, rather than the technical context, I would still go for sensitivity - trying to get someone without a technical background to understand the nuances of ISO and its implications would be like eating shards of glass...

In the vernacular I would say that ISO is used to provide a benefit, i.e. to allow us to take photos in low light by 'amping up' the sensor's reaction to energy. (I use the example of tapes that are poorly recorded, so we turn up the volume on the amp to hear, but get hiss - noise.) So on the plus side it allows us to increase shutter speed, and/or use a smaller aperture, or even allow us to take an image hand-held. We pay for that in noise, reduced dynamic ranges and colour rendition.

I personally think that the digital "ISO knob" should have been labeled "Noise" ...

[xpatUSA]

Again, in the the vernacular, rather than the technical context, I would still go for sensitivity - trying to get someone without a technical background to understand the nuances of ISO and its implications would be like eating shards of glass...

In the vernacular I would say that ISO is used to provide a benefit, i.e. to allow us to take photos in low light by 'amping up' the sensor's reaction to energy. (I use the example of tapes that are poorly recorded, so we turn up the volume on the amp to hear, but get hiss - noise.) So on the plus side it allows us to increase shutter speed, and/or use a smaller aperture, or even allow us to take an image hand-held. We pay for that in noise, reduced dynamic ranges and colour rendition.

That is truly horrible, sorry. The "sensor's reaction to energy" is completely unchanged by the ISO setting and no amount of "amping up" will change that.

Another analogy is the good old tranny radio which I have messed with in the past. It is possible to insert an RF amplifier between the aerial and the existing stuff in a pathetic attempt to get Radio Luxembourg better, rather than listening to boring BBC. In spite of using the high-gain Mullard AF117 all I got was ... yep ... more noise ...

I think we're saying the same thing, just in different ways?

[Tronhard]

Here again we come to the dichotomy of the absolute scientific or engineering perspective vs a teaching analogy for the average person to get some level of the understanding of the end result of a control and its impact on an image. Knowledge of a subject is not necessarily effective in teaching it. I see this with a lot of lecturers at the university. They have doctorates and know vast amounts of information about a particular subject, but in being so involved in the technical they cannot impart that effectively within the context of their introductory-level audience.

I totally respect your engineering perspective, but we are looking at two very different situations. I come back to one of the fundamentals of learning: (outside teaching by rote) people are not actually taught or instructed, they discover concepts or principles based on building upon their own experiences and understandings. It is the educator's job to give them that bridge between experience or current perception, and the concept that is being introduced. The best way of doing that is to create analogies using experiences common to the level of those in the class. While your explanation is doubtless more accurate, and for a technical class would be highly appropriate, the likelihood that students of Photography 101 in the modern era will associate with that is fairly small - it's still too technical and outside their experience. I need an analogy that works for the general population to get the basic principle of the impact of the ISO control in a way with which they will have some familiarity and comfort. The idea is not to provide a primer on ISO per se, it is to explain how to use ISO to take photos.

Most people have come across audio tape music - in fact cassettes have been enjoying a resurgence similar to that of vinyl I discovered when I was selling mine and found out that they were highly sought after and I got more than I paid for them - but I digress. The analogy is a pathway to a level of comprehension in order to get the average newbie to grasp the practical use of ISO in controlling their image. I have absolutely no doubt that in the purest sense it will make your hair curl, but that level of technical accuracy is beyond the scope of my audience. Some may move into that higher level of comprehension, but the vast majority will just need to know what the ISO 'thingy' does and how to use it to control their images.

[DanK]

A simple solution: increasing ISO amplifies the signal produced by the sensor. Does that do the trick?

I personally think that the digital "ISO knob" should have been labeled "Noise"

now, now. Given that you are arguing that we all should be more precise: increasing ISO amplifies everything, of course,not just noise. And in many cases, the visual effect is to brighten the image while not making noise all that much more visible (that is, when the S/N ratio is high to begin with).

[Tronhard]

I raised my eyebrows a bit at that one too. Simply labelling it 'noise' produces a very negative perception of ISO as an element in exposure control. It is there for a purpose - it has both benefits and drawbacks, so to label it with such negative connotations seems unconstructive. That said, I suspect Ted was in some jest.

A simple solution: increasing ISO amplifies the signal produced by the sensor. Does that do the trick?

now, now. Given that you are arguing that we all should be more precise: increasing ISO amplifies everything, of course,not just noise. And in many cases, the visual effect is to brighten the image while not making noise all that much more visible (that is, when the S/N ratio is high to begin with).

[xpatUSA]

I raised my eyebrows a bit at that one too. Simply labelling it 'noise' produces a very negative perception of ISO as an element in exposure control. It is there for a purpose - it has both benefits and drawbacks, so to label it with such negative connotations seems unconstructive. That said, I suspect Ted was in some jest.

Yep!

[PentaxCharlie65]

Perhaps it could be renamed reaction time. That may be an accurate term as it would be the measure of the time for the second shutter curtain to react and follow the first across the opening. Of course then that could be reason to call it speed as it would be the reaction speed of the second shutter curtain. Essentially to me it is moot. I, and nearly every photographer I've known, always referred to the time the shutter is open for exposure as the shutter speed all the way back to when I bought my first SLR over half a century ago.

[MrB]

It is disappointing that, after over two decades of digital photography, beginners are still being given information which is misleading and/or wrong at the basic level. There should be no need for analogies in Photography 101. A camera is a device used to make, and often to record, an image of a scene. The camera has three controls which affect the brightness of the image. Two of those are the exposure controls which alter the amount of scene light allowed to enter the camera - Aperture value (bigger hole = more light) and Time value (longer time = more light). The third is the ISO value control - the camera's electronics can change the image brightness (higher ISO = brighter image). These three controls work together to give the desired image, and this is often represented as an Image Brightness Triangle. Further learning modules should go on to describe the other effects of altering those three values (e.g. aperture and depth of field; tme and subject/camera movement; ISO and visible image noise). An educational advantage of digital photography is that all of these basics of learning can easily be reinforced by the beginners themselves, by actually using the camera and examining the image on its rear LCD screen.

Philip

[pnodrog]

A big part of the problem is the unwashed public tend to adopt the terms used by marketing departments not product development teams... This true for most products.