Luminous Landscape Forum

Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: Paul Sumi on December 29, 2005, 11:13:11 am

Title: Why only ISO on Home Page Photo?
Post by: Paul Sumi on December 29, 2005, 11:13:11 am
I'm trying to figure out why giving only the ISO is useful information (as opposed to also citing aperture, shutter speed and exposure compensation).

I look at the current home page photo, "Crescent Moon, Antarctica," and the lighting conditions don't appear to be unusual.  According to the EXIF the focal length is 200mm, ISO is 200, aperture is f/5.6, the shutter is 1/400 and the exposure comp is -2/3rds stop.

All of the settings make perfect sense, especially as the ship was moving when the frame was captured.

Citing ISO only seems arbitrary, but I'm not sure that adding aperture and shutter speed info really adds anything useful, either.  It's only in the context of the conditions under which the frame was captured that we understand why the camera settings were chosen.

Paul
Title: Why only ISO on Home Page Photo?
Post by: gr82bart on December 31, 2005, 01:51:10 pm
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I'm trying to figure out why giving only the ISO is useful information (as opposed to also citing aperture, shutter speed and exposure compensation).
A lot of pixel fauxtographers set their cameras on 'program' anyways and wouldn't know what to do with the shutter speed and aperture.  

Regards, Art.
Title: Why only ISO on Home Page Photo?
Post by: Jonathan Wienke on December 31, 2005, 01:59:26 pm
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A lot of pixel fauxtographers set their cameras on 'program' anyways and wouldn't know what to do with the shutter speed and aperture. 
You'll find that sort of attitude is fairly rare around here, at least among the long-time forum participants. And it is fairly common for the shutter speed and aperture to be included in the data given for the home page photo. This entire discussion is rather pointless.
Title: Why only ISO on Home Page Photo?
Post by: Paul Sumi on January 01, 2006, 03:40:52 pm
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And it is fairly common for the shutter speed and aperture to be included in the data given for the home page photo. This entire discussion is rather pointless.
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Jonathan,

If you peruse Michael's [a href=\"http://www.luminous-landscape.com/locations/antarctic-archive.shtml]Antarctica Archive[/url], which includes a number of recent home page photos, you'll find that ISO is the ONLY exposure datum cited.  I'm pretty sure that this has been the case for home page photos for quite a while.

And my POINT still stands: why does Michael feel that ISO is important enough to be included and not other exposure data? It makes no sense to me.

Paul
Title: Why only ISO on Home Page Photo?
Post by: David Mantripp on January 03, 2006, 10:53:48 am
I suppose in the digital age ISO is significant if you're concerned about noise.  But it is only really interesting at high ISO.  

I don't see why this discussion is pointless...   I can think of at least one another which is a total waste of space.  It isn't particular constructive or friendly to jump in with this sort of comment - better to just decide "ok, I'm not interested in this, I'll stay out of it". I'm finding the general tone around here really quite uncongenial, recently.