What does "ISO" stand for? Nothing!

[David Sutton]

It's not an acronym. I didn't know that. I assumed it stood for "International Standards Organisation" but when I looked that up found there is no such thing. There is an "International Organisation for Standards".
From their website:
"Because 'International Organization for Standardization' would have different acronyms in different languages (IOS in English, OIN in French for Organisation internationale de normalisation), our founders decided to give it the short form ISO. ISO is derived from the Greek isos, meaning equal. Whatever the country, whatever the language, we are always ISO."
So why do they capitalise "ISO"? I haven't a clue.
Interestingly, Willy Kuert  (the Swiss delegate to the 1946 London Conference which founded ISO) recalls:
"The first question that had to be settled in London was that of the name of the new organization. There were different proposals. The English and the Americans wanted “International Standards Coordinating Association”, but we fought against the word “coordinating ”. It was too limited. In the end ISO was chosen. I think it is good ; it is short. I recently read that the name ISO was chosen because “iso” is a Greek term meaning “equal”. There was no mention of that in London!"
David

[LawrenceBraunstein]

Interesting. I had as well always assumed it stands for 'International Standards Organization'. I now stand corrected. Thank you for sharing this with us!

With best wishes,

Larry

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

They must be the ones that invented the ISOsceles triangle.   

[PeterAit]

I recall the acronym TWAIN, which identified a protocol used to interface a scanner with a computer. The story goes that no one could think of a cool name for the protocol, so some wag came up with Technology Without An Interesting Name, hence TWAIN.

[kirkt]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_speed#Current_system:_ISO

[Simon Garrett]

It is sometimes said that the country just across the English Channel from Britain tends to object to standards organisations (or anything else, for that matter) having English names, and so they try to go for abreviations that work in English and French, use the French abreviation or use different abreviations in English and French documents.  I could not possibly comment.

I was at one standards meeting, and in the plenary session I was the head of the UK delegation.  We were discussing a meeting summary document that the Canadian Chairman had drafted.  The grammar was a bit sloppy, but the document didn't matter that much, so I had not made any comment.  The French head of delegation, whose English was immaculate, proposed a series of minor improvements to the English.  All his proposed changes were correct, but were increasingly annoying the Canadian Chairman. 

At the end of the list of changes, the Chairman said "I assume this document now has the approval of the French delegation?"  The French head of delegation said "Naturally I can't say that until I've seen the official French translation"

[ripgriffith]

Knowing this, I can take much better pictures now.

[Tim Lookingbill]

This site that uses the name "ISO" doesn't appear to be about nothing...

http://www.iso.org/iso/home/about.htm

I know a relative who worked at Shell Oil Research Labs in Houston, TX back in the '80's was constantly having to work overtime analyzing and updating their pneumatic and cooling systems to ISO standards that seemed to be similar to what's mentioned in this quote...

Finally, the LIMS makes it possible for Pearl GTL to meet an increasingly crucial requirement of oil and gas laboratories: regulatory compliance. ISO 17025 established an international standard for how sampling labs manage data collection, security, instrumentation, traceability, personnel and more. By collecting complete data records, the LIMS ensures that Pearl GTL is always in compliance with ISO 17025 and other standards. The solution also guarantees that compliance can be easily proven in the case of an audit.

...from this site... http://www.oilandgastechnology.net/downstream-news/shells-pearl-worlds-largest-gtl-facility

My relative did get a raise afterward...ergo I'm having to assume ISO insures some kind of increase/improvement in standard of living through regulation.

[Plateau Light]

It used to be that film was rated ISO or ASA. And the rating was given a number on a scale for whichever standard was being used. It was really a film sensitivity rating and throughout the years there have been different scales for rating film speed/sensitivity. The problem is that today we don't use film in our digital cameras so it would seem awkward to mention film speed. It's kind of the digital camera version of Ebonics.

While I agree it is a bit of a misnomer it seems as if the street slang alphabet abbreviation is here to stay.

[Lundberg02]

It's a Windows disk image , isn't it?

[Plateau Light]

It's a Windows disk image , isn't it?

Nah... I think it's a terrorist organization or Geehad thing

[Wayne Fox]

This site that uses the name "ISO" doesn't appear to be about nothing...

http://www.iso.org/iso/home/about.htm

I think the point of the OP was more about the fact that the term ISO is not an acronym of International Standards Organization, (or International Organization of Standards for that matter), but is simply a name that was created by the group.  Yes the name refers to the International Organization of Standards, but ISO was not derived from that name ... and should probably be spelled Iso.

Interesting information, and I myself am guilty of teaching that ISO means international standards organization ... I’ll have to modify that part of the class ...

[rpsphoto]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Organization_for_Standardization

[Tim Lookingbill]

I think the point of the OP was more about the fact that the term ISO is not an acronym of International Standards Organization, (or International Organization of Standards for that matter), but is simply a name that was created by the group.  Yes the name refers to the International Organization of Standards, but ISO was not derived from that name ... and should probably be spelled Iso.

Interesting information, and I myself am guilty of teaching that ISO means international standards organization ... I’ll have to modify that part of the class ...

Then you need a citation of some sort or this thread is just meaningless supposition and serves no one who might be seeking useable and/or valued information such as your class.

With regards to photography as in high/low ISO what does the I, S and O stand for or is it just shorthand for some Greek term?

And thanks for the belated response to my post. You must be real busy teaching.

[wolfnowl]

Thanks, David! I didn't know that either. Since ASA was for American Standards Association, I assumed ISO was for, well, you know...

Mike.

[mahleu]

According to Wikipedia

-Photographic film's sensitivity to light (its "film speed") is described by ISO 6, ISO 2240 and ISO 5800. Hence, the film's speed is often referred to as by its ISO number.
-As it was originally defined in ISO 518, the flash hot shoe found on cameras is often called the "ISO shoe".

[Wayne Fox]

Then you need a citation of some sort or this thread is just meaningless supposition and serves no one who might be seeking useable and/or valued information such as your class.

With regards to photography as in high/low ISO what does the I, S and O stand for or is it just shorthand for some Greek term?

And thanks for the belated response to my post. You must be real busy teaching.

Sorry if I didn’t make the comment in a timely enough fashion for you. the reason for the belated post is pretty simple, the original post and follow ups were while on a trip shooting with little internet access, when I got back it had moved down far enough  I didn’t notice it, then a few others responded this week (9 days after your post) which bubbled it back to the top and I noticed it and decided to check out the thread .  Pretty simple. And yes, like yourself and most people I am pretty busy doing many things, among them teaching classes offered by my store as well as other groups.  Nothing special about that, my only point was like a few others mentioned, I have incorrectly referred to ISO as the “international standards organization”, assuming ISO was derived as an acronym.  Important?  perhaps not, but interesting.

 to be honest I’m still a little confused as to what your point was in your first post, but I read it as you thought the OP was sort of demeaning the work of ISO.  sorry if I misinterpreted what you were trying to say.  The OP clearly stated the full name of the organization which you then link , and as far as a citation, the first quote in the original post is a direct quote from the home page of the link you provided.  Here it is again from the home page of ISO.org ...

"Because 'International Organization for Standardization' would have different acronyms in different languages (IOS in English, OIN in French for Organisation internationale de normalisation), our founders decided to give it the short form ISO. ISO is derived from the Greek isos, meaning equal. Whatever the country, whatever the language, we are always ISO.”

The only point to the thread and the original post was that ISO is not an acronym for “international standards organization” but is in fact a “name” (or short name as they refer to it) chosen so it would be universal in every language (similar to why George Eastman chose Kodak), not from using the letters of the english version of the organizations name which is international organization of standards.

[Tim Lookingbill]

The only point to the thread and the original post was that ISO is not an acronym for “international standards organization” but is in fact a “name” (or short name as they refer to it) chosen so it would be universal in every language (similar to why George Eastman chose Kodak), not from using the letters of the english version of the organizations name which is international organization of standards.

Yes, I understand all that.

I still don't see any evidence by which ISO is defined specifically as in reference to film speed over the ISO standard used for establishing commercial press print viewing conditions which both fall under the subject of photography and imaging in general but also is used in the oil research industry.

There's so much conflicting, non-specific and vague information in all those links including mine that I still haven't gotten the answer to how ISO relates and is defined in photography.

I read in one of the links that ISO comes from the greek word for "equal" (as in "equal" standards? film speed?) which indicates it's not meant to be read as an acronym. So which is it and what industry does ISO apply to?

[David Sutton]

Yes, I understand all that.

I still don't see any evidence by which ISO is defined specifically as in reference to film speed over the ISO standard used for establishing commercial press print viewing conditions which both fall under the subject of photography and imaging in general but also is used in the oil research industry.

There's so much conflicting, non-specific and vague information in all those links including mine that I still haven't gotten the answer to how ISO relates and is defined in photography.

I read in one of the links that ISO comes from the greek word for "equal" (as in "equal" standards? film speed?) which indicates it's not meant to be read as an acronym. So which is it and what industry does ISO apply to?

It's easy.
ISO is the International Organisation for Standards. As I quoted at the beginning from the ISO website, ISO is derived from the Greek isos, meaning equal. It is not an acronym.
There are ISO standards for most things.
The documents that describe the criteria for determining the ISO standards for film and digital sensors are copyrighted, so if you want to read them you have to purchase them through the ISO website. I believe the film standards are covered by ISO 6:1993, ISO 2240:2003 and ISO 5800:1987. The digital is ISO 12232:2006.
So when you are setting the sensitivity of your camera to ISO 100, what you are really doing is setting the digital sensor to a setting of 100 as detailed in the document "Photography – Digital still cameras – Determination of exposure index, ISO speed ratings, standard output sensitivity, and recommended exposure index; ISO 12232:2006".
Phew

[Wayne Fox]

I read in one of the links that ISO comes from the greek word for "equal" (as in "equal" standards? film speed?) which indicates it's not meant to be read as an acronym. So which is it and what industry does ISO apply to?

The reference to “equal” I assumed was about creating standards that are equal throughout the nations which are represented by the organization.  ISO is prevalent through most industries.  It would seem most engineers run into ISO standards frequently, but then I’m not an engineer.  But certainly the scope of film/sensor sensitivity is but a drop in the bucket of all the standards ISO is involved in.

As far as how it relates to photography, not enough sleep for me it seems as I’m still struggling trying to understand exactly what you are asking.  Regarding film and sensors, the standard applies to the  manufacturers who are required to measure their particular devices sensitivity according to the ISO standard, and then pass that on so the end user has a common reference between devices or films. I assume the document referenced is pretty explicit in how that measurement is to be determined.  In the case of film, the test actually determines the ISO number.  In the case of a sensor, I assume they use the ISO spec to determine base sensitivity, and design and program the gain controls of the camera for the sensor so that the ISO settings on the camera match the ISO specification.

I’ve always felt digital camera design were saddled to an archaic reference system as it seems when creating the digital ISO standard, they did so in the context of current film standards.   I guess at the time the two had to coexist so it made sense. wouldn’t it be easier just having a base ISO standard of 1, equivalent to ISO 100, and everything is just a multiple of that.  So if I set my camera sensitivity at +2, I’v adjusted it two stops.  Maybe a bad idea ... don’t know and certainly too late now.