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Author Topic: Now we need a new sensitity unit, H.ISO maybe?  (Read 2120 times)

ThomasH_normally

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Now we need a new sensitity unit, H.ISO maybe?
« on: October 14, 2009, 05:58:25 pm »

Just like with disk space, where the numbers in KBytes have now 10 digits or more, and bytes as served us by MS Windows are absurd (why do they still do that? 1,304,024,964,096 bytes free, really?) we begin to encounter the same phenomenon with camera ISO sensitivity.  102400 ISO, how would you pronounce that? "Thousand twenty four hundred"? Even worse is 12800, "hundred twenty eight hundred," it is a nightmare.  Other languages have similar issues, trust me, I speak 4.

We are in a need of a new unit of measure, and that should be an action embraced by the entire camera industry.

How about a simple pruning of "hundred" into a "HISO," hundred ISO, for lack of a better (or more correct) suggestion, with a decimal dot and one or two positions behind comma?

With that we would have 1H std. in a typical Canon for 100 ISO, 2H in several Nikon's incl. mine D300. Velvia 50 ISO would be 0.5H, and the above 12800 is now 128H, easier to pronounce, not to talk about the display space!  Nikon's record setting  1024 H is now manageable as well, and it will take a while to jump over 8192H into a 5-digit realm... A more "revolutionary" idea would to revert to the old logarithmic DIN scale.

What is your opinion?

Thomas
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pcunite

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Now we need a new sensitity unit, H.ISO maybe?
« Reply #1 on: October 14, 2009, 06:13:06 pm »

ISO 100 - One hundred
ISO 200 - Two hundred
ISO 400 - Four hundred
ISO 800 - Eight hundred
ISO 1600 - Sixteen hundred
ISO 3200 - Thirty-two hundred
ISO 6400 - Sixty-four hundred
ISO 12800 - One hundred twenty-eight hundred
ISO 25600 - Two hundred fifty-six hundred
ISO 51200 - Five hundred twelve hundred
ISO 102400 - Thousand twenty-four hundred

We should revert to:
ISO 1H - One
ISO 2H - Two
ISO 4H - Four
ISO 8H - Eight
ISO 16H - Sixteen
ISO 32H - Thirty-two
ISO 64H - Sixty-four
ISO 128H - One hundred twenty-eight
ISO 256H - Two hundred fifty-six
ISO 512H - Five hundred twelve
ISO 1024H - Thousand twenty-four

The "H" signifies the new format. The in-between stops could be expressed as decimals. 1.3 or 1.6 etc...
« Last Edit: October 14, 2009, 06:18:31 pm by pcunite »
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Panopeeper

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Now we need a new sensitity unit, H.ISO maybe?
« Reply #2 on: October 14, 2009, 07:17:26 pm »

If we are about reforming the terminology, then the question has to come up: why would one keep this hundred-thingy at all? Why not simply number the steps through?

To be sure to cover every commercially possible situation, let's start with ISO 3, and name that 0. Then  ISO 6 becomes 1, ISO 12 will be 2, etc. It would look like

0 -> 3 (accurately: 3.125)
1 -> 6 (accurately: 6.25)
2 -> 12 (accurately: 12.5)
3 -> 25
4 -> 50
5 -> 100
6 -> 200
7 -> 400
8 -> 800
9 -> 1600
10 -> 3200
11 -> 6400
12 -> 12800
13 -> 25600
14 -> 51200
15 -> 102400

The 1/3 EV ISO stops correspond to 0.33 and 0.66 between the two whole values. For example ISO 125 would be 5.33.

The burst of applause for this idea should be directed towards American Standard General-Purpose Photographic Exposure Meters of 1961, aka APEX.
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tho_mas

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Now we need a new sensitity unit, H.ISO maybe?
« Reply #3 on: October 14, 2009, 07:52:47 pm »

why something new? why not something established?
ASA/DIN
50/18°
100/21°
200/24°
400/27°
...
102400/51°
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Per Ofverbeck

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Now we need a new sensitity unit, H.ISO maybe?
« Reply #4 on: October 15, 2009, 05:34:43 am »

Quote from: tho_mas
why something new? why not something established?
ASA/DIN
50/18°
100/21°
200/24°
400/27°
...
102400/51°


Exactly.  The old DIN scale, being logarithmic, was logical (one step is always 3 Din, wherever you are on the scale), simple, and gives reasonably small numbers.  But ASA, being American, was forced upon the world.....
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Per Ofverbeck
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NikoJorj

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Now we need a new sensitity unit, H.ISO maybe?
« Reply #5 on: October 15, 2009, 08:21:07 am »

Quote from: tho_mas
why something new? why not something established?
ASA/DIN
50/18°
[...]
102400/51°
Yes indeed!

- It does exist,
- seems to be actually incorporated in the ISO standard as well as the ASA linear scale,
- is much more convenient with these high sensibilities,
- and as said it gives a more sensible approach, stating clearly that the step between 25 and 50 is the same as the one between 51.200 and 102.400.

The APEX version with unity steps, giving directly a number of f-stops, would seem a bit more practical that said.
If the choice of the ASA scale is a matter of "God bless America" vs. "Deutchland über alles", one could pick the APEX then.  
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Nicolas from Grenoble
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