New fangled technology ruins everything!

[unpopular]

Ok. Not really. I'll never go back to the darkroom. Like ever.

But I am talking with a third year cinematography student pal of mine, and he doesn't seem to understand a grey card is used for exposure, and not just white balance.

Has automation, such as AE and AF disrupted how we learn about photography to the point that the craft of photography risks being lost forever?

 

[Overread]

No
I'm very sure there were people who didn't understand greycards in the film era - and people who didn't know what they were doing and who pointed and clicked and even rifle-shot (I assume that's the old style way of saying machine gunning? ).

The only difference is the internet now makes you aware of MANY of them; whilst in the past you probably only met a handful at best.

 

[robbins.photo]

A few years ago when I first picked up a D5100 and started taking pictures, well it had all the automated features a newbie might want.

Autofocus, built in light meter, etc, etc , etc...

And yet when I compare what I'm shooting today vrs what I shot back then it's a night and day difference. My skills have improved quite a bit since back then.

I understand the exposure triangle. I know how to adjust the settings to get the shot I want. I know how to frame my shot, and how to control my AF system to get the desired results.

No, I don't manually focus. But I still setup my cameras AF system to give me the best results based on my situation. If I'm shooting something relatively big that doesn't move much, single point. If I'm shooting something smaller that moves but I have a more cluttered background, maybe I go to 9, if I'm shooting at something fast without a cluttered background, maybe I go up even further. I know from experience what is going to give me the best odds of getting the shot.

So yes that is a different skill set than manual focus, but it's still a skill set.

 

[table1349]

Ok. Not really. I'll never go back to the darkroom. Like ever.

But I am talking with a third year cinematography student pal of mine, and he doesn't seem to understand a grey card is used for exposure, and not just white balance.

Has automation, such as AE and AF disrupted how we learn about photography to the point that the craft of photography risks being lost forever?

That's because he hasn't gotten to the 4th year of cinematography and leaned the phrase, "You want fry's with that?"

 

[Overread]

If anything its actually harder in some ways. AF setups for example can be confusing to work out what the best best option is because it can be very hard to reproduce accurate tests which are not susceptible to user error or random subject motion.
So some of these more advanced systems can be harder to penetrate the real understanding of and to get into a practised workflow with.

 

[unpopular]

Ok. Not really. I'll never go back to the darkroom. Like ever.

But I am talking with a third year cinematography student pal of mine, and he doesn't seem to understand a grey card is used for exposure, and not just white balance.

Has automation, such as AE and AF disrupted how we learn about photography to the point that the craft of photography risks being lost forever?

That's because he hasn't gotten to the 4th year of cinematography and leaned the phrase, "You want fry's with that?"

He already has a career well on way He's has a good eye, but I am surprised that basic exposure referencing hasn't been part of his education.

He's complained about getting multi-camera setups to work right. If in fact he doesn't know how to use a grey card, that could certainly be part of the issue....

 

[Overread]

With experience its possible to land in a job superior to ones skills on paper. A single film done with a single camera in good controlled lighting might well have landed him a job suddenly with multiple cameras and different setups and suddenly the skill set that worked before no longer works and necessitates a deeper understanding.

 

[Ysarex]

Ok. Not really. I'll never go back to the darkroom. Like ever.

But I am talking with a third year cinematography student pal of mine, and he doesn't seem to understand a grey card is used for exposure, and not just white balance.

Has automation, such as AE and AF disrupted how we learn about photography to the point that the craft of photography risks being lost forever?

That's because he hasn't gotten to the 4th year of cinematography and leaned the phrase, "You want fry's with that?"

He already has a career well on way He's has a good eye, but I am surprised that basic exposure referencing hasn't been part of his education.

He's complained about getting multi-camera setups to work right. If in fact he doesn't know how to use a grey card, that could certainly be part of the issue....

Yep, it's gotten pretty bad. Here, watch this:

Fill in the blanks:
Photographic exposure is a function of _________________, ____________________, ________________

Joe

P.S. Just wait awhile and see what we get.
P.S. It's a question from one of the tests I give.

 

[unpopular]

Time, Aperture, Quantum Yield (film) or Signal Gain (digital) [ie ISO]

Then again, I learned back when teachers required manual-everything. Way back in the late 90s before there was AE, right? :/

 

[Ysarex]

Time, Aperture, Quantum Yield (film) or Signal Gain (digital) [ie ISO]

Then again, I learned back when teachers required manual-everything. Way back in the late 90s before there was AE, right? :/

Yikes! They've even got you in the triangle.

Joe

 

[unpopular]

Uhm. I am afraid so. Intensity can't be part of the correct answer since the exposure is cumulative, and theirfor arbitrary. Development can't be because it occurs after reduction of the halide or conversion of the signal.

Strictly speaking, I can't see how *exposure* can be anything but a function of the quantity of photons at the recording media required to be encoded into information. How this information is decoded is a function of processing, not exposure.

Afraid this must be a trick question.

 

[Ysarex]

Uhm. I am afraid so. Intensity can't be part of the correct answer since the exposure is cumulative. Development can't be because it occurs after reduction.

Afraid this must be a trick question.

The definition in Wiki is right: "In photography, exposure is the amount of light per unit area (the image plane illuminance times the exposure time) reaching a photographic film or electronic image sensor, as determined by shutter speed, lens aperture and scene luminance."

I believe you have a Fuji XE-1 correct?

Camera on full manual, set the shutter speed to 1/60 sec. and the lens aperture to f/8. In a location with constant illumination trip the shutter and you expose the sensor. Now change the camera's ISO -- raise it by a factor of 4, and trip the shutter again. Did your 2nd exposure place more, less or the same amount of light on the sensor?

Your mind has been polluted by Bryan Peterson

-- may heaven have mercy on your soul.

Joe

 

[unpopular]

Oh god. Don't say that! I cannot tell you how much I HATE Peterson!

However, I disagree that QY/QE should be excluded; and I recognize that the accepted definition disagrees. And I am OK with that.

As another example. Take two sensors, one with a base equivalent ISO of 800 and another with an equivalent ISO of 200. Now, we set these two sensors and expose the same quantity of light to both. Without attenuation, will both sensors result in the same measured data?

While it is arguable that the ISO 800 sensor is more efficient, wasting fewer electrons than the ISO 200 sensor, and likewise more accurate to the actual quantity of photons, because without the higher sensitive sensor we'd have no means to account for them, thus making it irrelevant. Likewise without a sensor with 100% QE, the task of knowing the exact number of photons (and thus the exact number of photons lost) in any given space (using the output of the sensor alone) would be impossible!

Excluding the photo- chemical/electric properties of the medium doesn't really make sense to me. Exposure without a medium is like calling light traveling through a vacuum an exposure. At any given plane within this space there is some quantity of light, but we have no idea what that quantity is until there is something for the light to interact with. The knowledge that there is a quantity of light itself has no meaning.

Perhaps gain could be excluded since this is a process of feeding current back through an amplifier and has nothing to do with the photoelectric reaction, though this is splitting hairs.

 

[Ysarex]

Oh god. Don't say that! I cannot tell you how much I HATE Peterson!

However, I disagree that QY/QE should be excluded; and I recognize that the accepted definition disagrees. And I am OK with that.

As another example. Take two sensors, one with a base equivalent ISO of 800 and another with an equivalent ISO of 200. Now, we set these two sensors and expose the same quantity of light to both. Without attenuation, will both sensors result in the same measured data?

While it is arguable that the ISO 800 sensor is more efficient, wasting fewer electrons than the ISO 200 sensor, and likewise more accurate to the actual quantity of photons, because without the higher sensitive sensor we'd have no means to account for them, thus making it irrelevant. Likewise without a sensor with 100% QE, the task of knowing the exact number of photons (and thus the exact number of photons lost) in any given space (using the output of the sensor alone) would be impossible!

Excluding the photo- chemical/electric properties of the medium doesn't really make sense to me. Exposure without a medium is like calling light traveling through a vacuum an exposure. At any given plane within this space there is some quantity of light, but we have no idea what that quantity is until there is something for the light to interact with. The knowledge that there is a quantity of light itself has no meaning.

Perhaps gain could be excluded since this is a process of feeding current back through an amplifier and has nothing to do with the photoelectric reaction, though this is splitting hairs.

We don't exclude the sensitivity of the medium we put it where it belongs. Obviously the sensitivity of a film/sensor enters into an equation for determining a "correct" or shall we say serviceable result from said medium but that's a different horse and we want to be careful to keep a grip on which horse is which. Otherwise the next thing you know you're reading Understanding Exposure and thinking you've finally got it.

The definition of photographic exposure was set and accepted by our discipline long before either of us were born. It is correctly stated in that Wiki definition. It's clear and makes perfect sense and once we understand what it is and how to manipulate it we can move on to manipulating it to achieve a serviceable result from one film/sensor or another of different sensitivity.

Peterson's Exposure Triangle that includes ISO such that armies of photogs now think of ISO as an exposure control has caused massive misunderstanding that eventually gets photogs into trouble. I couldn't count how many photogs I've met now that think ISO plays an equally interchangeable role with shutter and f/stop as far as determining exposure.

I don't think I have to explain to you why it doesn't.

Joe

 

[unpopular]

No. You certainly don't. Naturally, ISO is a set it and forget it parameter as far as I'm concerned. In fact, I don't even like calling it "ISO" with digital, because it's not the same thing as in film at all; in fact, last I knew the ISO hasn't even set standards for digital photography. Maybe they have by now?

I suppose it makes some degree of sense to exclude sensitivity. For one, we really don't have that much control over it (and in the case of digital, we don't have any control at all). But the term "exposure" kind of sets me back a bit, this implies that there is some kind of reaction happening or at least, a state in which that reaction occurs.

This latter bit might be the solution: according to Google Dictionary, exposure is defined as "the state of being exposed to contact with something", and the fact that contact is made says nothing of the effect that this contact makes. My first clue should have been that "exposure" is a noun, not a verb.

Exposure to a sensor is the same regardless of how sensitive, or even if the material is capable of making direct measurement at all for that matter; like you said, the light doesn't change.

So really, encoding could be defined as a function of exposure and quantum yield/efficiency (i.e. sensitivity), whilst decoding could be defined as a function of processing.