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

[xpatUSA]

... These three controls work together to give the desired image, and this is often represented as an Image Brightness Triangle ...

I googled "Image Brightness Triangle" and only got two hits. One of which was in an article about "The Exposure Square" !!

[pnodrog]

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

Yes. The sooner they teach that ISO has very little to do with exposure the better...

[MrB]

I googled "Image Brightness Triangle" and only got two hits. One of which was in an article about "The Exposure Square" !!

Good morning, Ted.

As I think you probably realise, my description is an example of how I think these things might be done differently rather than how they are now!

Cheers.
Philip

[xpatUSA]

Good morning, Ted.

As I think you probably realise, my description is an example of how I think these things might be done differently rather than how they are now!

Cheers.
Philip

Morning Philip. Pardon my misunderstanding of "These three controls work together to give the desired image, and this is often represented as an Image Brightness Triangle"

[Tronhard]

I have been an educational professional for most of my life, and my comments about how people learn new concepts stand, and are validated by research and professional experience. I was formally trained as a teacher, have taught at levels from schools to adults in community centres to universities, and in several countries.

The methodologies and levels of understanding at which there is comprehension varies, but the principle remains the same. Some people learn by the lineal approach of reading books or videos, some like to be able to question and discuss, and others learn by practical activity and do not shine in a formal educational environment. However, one thing they have in common is that they learn best by being presented with concepts that are relevant to them, expand on their experience, and for the most part they want to learn enough, and no more than is necessary to achieve their goals.

We are part of a community that has an interest and strong association with photography, and many (but not all) at a highly technical level. People engage with photography for many reasons and want to do so at a wide range of levels.

Many of those starting out in the wider community are not, and have not, engaged with science or technology, so throwing non-critical terminology into the mix is frankly counterproductive. When the explanations step outside of their comfort zones they get stressed and when that happens they become less able to engage their intellect as the Neocortex is suppressed and the Limbic system (fight, fight or freeze centre) dominates.

When I first started teaching adults it was in the realm of personal computers in the 1980's, usually for employees who were told they would have to work with PC's after going on a course at my institution. That was an extremely stressful situation as PC's were totally new and they had no comfort with them. They had to understand how to use a totally unfamiliar technology and it was my job to help them make that adjustment. The explanations they needed about how computers processed information did not have to be technically perfect, they had to be appropriate and relevant to their needs to achieve their goals of being functional.

As an IT engineer myself, I knew that some things I taught were over-simplified, but in the context of this learning environment, were totally appropriate. My results for achieving those goals gained awards and were emulated within my own and other institutions. So yes, analogies work.

Many years later I was teaching the principles of IT management and customer satisfaction and retention to a wide range of employees of several ICT companies in Australasia. Basically, sales people get customers while service staff keep them, so it was critical that all employees were part of the program. The management and sales people found it relatively easy to get the principles involved in engaging with customers as it was within their character profiles and interest, but those who were the IT techies suffered. Generally the more technical the more they struggled.

Not only did they not have the experience and context, but they couldn't appreciate why they should have to learn this stuff. They considered their job was to fix computers, not to keep clients happy. Their comfort zone was back in the technology itself rather than with the customers who engaged and paid for their services, so again I had to build bridges between their world and perspective, and what they needed to know to be able to achieve the goals of the program. This is not simply a function of education and intelligence, it is also based on understanding and dealing with character types.

It is pedagogically unsound to throw unnecessarily pedantic technical concepts at a wide population people who have had little or no experience in that area. Those who are calling the use of analogies invalid are showing their own ignorance of the principles of learning.

The fact that there has been a healthy debate about the subtleties and linguistics of the subject absolutely reinforces my point that the more one gets into the nuances and higher levels of a subject the more people of a technical bent will argue over the details, and that is absolutely fine, but this is not something a novice needs to be involved in. It is often said that an expert knows more and more about less and less, and there is some truth to that.

It would be arrogant to suggest that this quite technical 'expert' debate should define an approach to understanding photography as it applies to the masses of people who simply want to master the controls of their cameras with the specific purpose of taking photographs that are relevant to their purposes. They simply want to know, in a way they can assimilate, what the controls do and how to use them, so they can move on to the capturing of images.

[pschlute]

When I first started teaching adults it was in the realm of personal computers in the 1980's, usually for employees who were told they would have to work with PC's after going on a course at my institution. That was an extremely stressful situation as PC's were totally new and they had no comfort with them

I distinctly remember when at my workplace we made the transition to PCs. One of the directors (no less), after seeing a pop-up on his screen "You have mail", walked down the corridor to the Post Room and announced to one of the messengers he had come to pick up his mail !

[xpatUSA]

<big snip> It is pedagogically unsound to throw unnecessarily pedantic technical concepts at a wide population [of] people who have had little or no experience in that area. <big snip>

Trev,

May I ask, with reference to the population of the CiC fora; are "most of us" lacking in technical knowledge and, if so, what level of technical explanation is acceptable here?

A glaring example is good old "resolution": Should one talk of resolution in terms of MP so that most of us understand, albeit incorrectly or should one delve a bit lower into the world of Nyquist, Rayleigh, Abbe, et al to make a point clear?

Should statements like "higher ISO = brighter image" be allowed to pass into forum lore or should they be clarified by the pedantic "few of us"?

Pardon the rhetoric ...

[DanK]

I'm an educator also--I've taught nearly every level from 4th grade in elementary school to graduate school. I don't quite agree with part of what Trev wrote:

The explanations they needed about how computers processed information did not have to be technically perfect, they had to be appropriate and relevant to their needs to achieve their goals of being functional.

I think the explanations should be nontechnical and accessible but as close as possible to technically correct, fully correct if possible. And with enough work, one can often find a nontechnical explanation that suffices.

I won't bore anyone with the details, but I work in a field that is at its core an arcane subset of applied statistics but that is used by people with no statistical or mathematical background at all. One of the courses I designed and taught for nearly 20 years (and that has been continued by the university since my retirement) presented the core concepts and principles of the field while using little or no mathematics. I used the concepts, but not their algebraic representation. Based on that class, I wrote what is essentially an easy-reading introductory text without a single equation. Some people still use the book as a text in technical introductory courses, to supplement the mathematical presentations.

I think Philip's suggestion is brilliant. it's a simple phrase to understand, and it's correct. Unfortunately, it comes too late, but if I were writing an introductory photography book for a nontechnical audience, similar to the audience for the book I described above, I might well use Philip's term. Once they have that down, you could refer to the "exposure triangle" and explain why that common phrase is wrong and, more importantly, why raising ISO functions differently from changing shutter speed or aperture.

I frankly doubt I would bother substituting another term for shutter speed. I don't think I've ever run into anyone who was misled by it. In that respect, it's very different from "exposure triangle", which does mislead people.

Dan

[xpatUSA]

In terms of education, I like the 'top-down' approach. I do agree that coming straight in here with a very technical comment with no explanation can be quite off-putting to "most of us" and I do admit occasional guilt in that respect. Still wondering where the line is between "technical" and "non-technical" ...

[DanK]

In terms of education, I like the 'top-down' approach. I do agree that coming straight in here with a very technical comment with no explanation can be quite off-putting to "most of us" and I do admit occasional guilt in that respect. Still wondering where the line is between "technical" and "non-technical" ...

I'll give you an example. Statisticians use "error" and "reliability" in a much narrower way than people do in common parlance. Much of what we call errors in common parlance are labeled "bias" in statistics. Formally, the difference is the expected value of the estimator: if the observed values are inconsistent but the expected value is correct, one has error. Bias arises when the expected value is wrong. You can have highly unreliable estimators that are unbiased, and biased estimators that are highly reliable.

So, you face a class that has no idea what an expected value is. Moreover, many of them don't know enough calculus to understand the definition of the expected value of a continuous distribution if you gave it to them. However, they don't need that to have a correct understanding of the difference between error and bias. I used the analogy of stepping on and off a scale many times, say 100 or more. it's easy to explain the idea of a long-run average, and with that example, there is no issue of weighting. Experience showed that all of them get the core concept, that is, the difference between error (inconsistency) and bias.

In the case of photography, my concern is when sloppy terminology leads to misunderstanding. That seems to be the case with "exposure triangle." I don't think it's the case with "shutter speed". I don't have data, but I doubt it's the case with the "exposure" adjustments in software like Lightroom; I suspect that if you asked people, they would be able to tell you that what you aren't actually changing exposure, but rather changing the image to look like exposure had been different. After all, all of the editing tools act on the recorded image. But I may be wrong.

[xpatUSA]

Originally Posted by xpatUSA Still wondering where the line is between "technical" and "non-technical" ...

I'll give you an example. Statisticians use "error" and "reliability" in a much narrower way than people do in common parlance. Much of what we call errors in common parlance are labeled "bias" in statistics. Formally, the difference is the expected value of the estimator: if the observed values are inconsistent but the expected value is correct, one has error. Bias arises when the expected value is wrong. You can have highly unreliable estimators that are unbiased, and biased estimators that are highly reliable.

So, you face a class that has no idea what an expected value is. Moreover, many of them don't know enough calculus to understand the definition of the expected value of a continuous distribution if you gave it to them. However, they don't need that to have a correct understanding of the difference between error and bias. I used the analogy of stepping on and off a scale many times, say 100 or more. it's easy to explain the idea of a long-run average, and with that example, there is no issue of weighting. Experience showed that all of them get the core concept, that is, the difference between error (inconsistency) and bias.

In the case of photography, my concern is when sloppy terminology leads to misunderstanding. That seems to be the case with "exposure triangle." I don't think it's the case with "shutter speed". I don't have data, but I doubt it's the case with the "exposure" adjustments in software like Lightroom; I suspect that if you asked people, they would be able to tell you that you aren't actually changing exposure, but rather changing the image to look like exposure had been different. After all, all of the editing tools act on the recorded image. But I may be wrong.

Thanks!

I'll need to read the first paragraphs a few more times re: error and bias.

As to "exposure" adjustments, you certainly touched a nerve there: I once hacked into a Sigma raw converter and changed the label for that adjustment to "Brightness" ... anal, I know.

[xpatUSA]

Thanks!

I'll need to read the first paragraphs a few more times re: error and bias.

This helped me:

https://online.stat.psu.edu/stat509/lesson/4

I found that an estimator is not a person but a method.

[DanK]

This helped me:

https://online.stat.psu.edu/stat509/lesson/4

I found that an estimator is not a person but a method.

Except where insurance is involved.

And the class/text in question never uses the word "estimator"

[MrB]

I too had a lifetime career in education. When the school at which I was a teacher received its first batch of Windows PCs, I offered free one-to-one tuition to members of staff who were unfamiliar with computers but were keen to learn. One of the older teachers, after a couple of half-hour sessions, was really enjoying it and doing very well. We were both concentrating on what was happening on-screen as he controlled the PC when I suggested, "You need to move the mouse up, Dave." He immediately responded, without any intention of humour or taking the p***, by lifting the mouse off its mat to about 2 feet into the air. Clearly I wasn't as competent an educator as some of the experts here.

Philip

[xpatUSA]

Originally Posted by xpatUSA This helped me:

https://online.stat.psu.edu/stat509/lesson/4

I found that an estimator is not a person but a method.

Except where insurance is involved.

And the class/text in question never uses the word "estimator"

Assuming that the "class/text in question" is referring to my link, yes, I actually found the meaning of "estimator" elsewhere - in Wikipedia.

[DanK]

I too had a lifetime career in education. When the school at which I was a teacher received its first batch of Windows PCs, I offered free one-to-one tuition to members of staff who were unfamiliar with computers but were keen to learn. One of the older teachers, after a couple of half-hour sessions, was really enjoying it and doing very well. We were both concentrating on what was happening on-screen as he controlled the PC when I suggested, "You need to move the mouse up, Dave." He immediately responded, without any intention of humour or taking the p***, by lifting the mouse off its mat to about 2 feet into the air. Clearly I wasn't as competent an educator as some of the experts here.

Philip

Don’t leave us hanging. Did it work?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MrB]

Don’t leave us hanging. Did it work?

Hello Dan.

He wanted to save his document, but his action didn't work. He was an intelligent man and way ahead of his time - perhaps thinking that he could put his file into The Cloud but, at that time, his attempt was restricted by the length of the mouse connecting lead.

Philip