"Aperture - "an opening, hole, orifice," from Latin apertura "an opening," from apertus, past participle of aperire "to open, uncover," from PIE compound ap-wer-yo- from ap- "off, away" (see apo-) + root *wer- "to cover." In optics, "the diameter of the exposed part of a telescope, microscope, etc.," from 1660s."
For a term established that early, why use an analogy?
Aperture (or exposure for that matter) isn't one of those.
Short-legged analogies are among the first reasons why misconceptions flourish. IMO if an analogy can be avoided it better be.
You’re a clever man and were probably fine as you were, but there’s lots of research to suggest that, for most people, a well chosen analogy supports learning.
I don't agree about this example (obviously) but that doesn't matter and is why we should have the debate. And once all the ideas are out in the open the way to settle any disputes is not by arguing but by testing the alternatives on beginners. UX testing for photography.
Which is completely different from the teaching of photographic theory. Hurter and Driffield worked it all out at the end of the 19th century, and for another century that was what photographers learned and understood. It hasn't replaced by a better model. Instead, a load of Web influencers replaced it with a model which is internally inconsistent, doesn't fit the observed phenomena, has zero pedagogic advantage and clogs up the minds of learners. What I don't understand is why, when I learned photography, beginners could learn subversive things like what 'exposure' means, suddenly it's all too difficult for them now.
I’m not going to agree or disagree with you at this point, especially as I know little of Web ‘influencers’. It was an impressive rant, though, and I would genuinely like to see you expand and explain your thinking. Is there another part of the site where this discussion might be better located?
Ever thought that some people would object to having their thoughts characterised as a 'rant'?
Anyhow. This is the open talk area, so as good a place to discuss it as any.
So, Hurter and Driffield, in a series of papers published between 1876 and 1890, established one by one the the basic concepts on which photographic practice was subsequently based. These included the modern concept of exposure, the concept of emulsion 'speed', based on a systematic method of measuring the effect of light on film, the characteristic (also called the Hurter Driffield) curve, the idea of 'correct' exposure, based on a rigorous definition, along with 'under' and 'over' exposure. For a century this was the basis of what beginners were taught about photography. Of course, they didn't learn all the thinking, discussion and controversy behind the work, they just learned the outcomes - that exposure was the illumination at the plane of focus times exposure time. That it was controlled by scene luminance, f-number and exposure time, that 'correct exposure' was an exposure that placed the range of scene luminance on the linear region of the characteristic curve. Fast forward to today, when most of the teaching materials available on the web are teaching something completely different - and if you argue those simple basics of photography on a beginners question forum, you'll be subjected to borderline offensive posts accusing you of engaging in PhD level technicalities and having p***ing contests.
A girl calls her father in the middle of the night, she can't start her car. Her dad is an IT guy. He mutters sleepily, "close the windows and open them again".
Doubling down on being offensive? Go and read the draft users' guidelines. If I was someone that took umbrage easily, what you'd be doing here is starting the kind of acrimonious dispute that some people here complain about.
Why? You'd have to ask them. Maybe they don't know any better. Maybe they just plagiarised someone else's (propagation of errors is a sure way of spotting. plagiarism). Maybe they don't want to be the one that doesn't fit in. What I do know is that I've gone through YouTube exposure explainers and have found just one that doesn't contain major errors. I add posts letting the authors know where they went wrong. Now the YouTube algorithm notifies me, so I've seen quite a few. Just one that isn't fundamentally wrong. And if you think I'm not right, link two that aren't wrong. And if you manage that, be honest about how many you needed to go through to find them.
Typical is along the lines of 'exposure refers to the amount of light on the sensor' along with 'exposure is controlled by aperture, shutter speed and ISO'.
for instance, the relationship between ISO setting and noise.
It subverts the practice of photography, for which an understanding of exposure is central.
I'll bet at the time there were people saying you're making this all too complicated; all you have to do is expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights.
The main argument was with a fellow called Captain W. deW. Abney. The papers are full of very polite shades against his approach. I love this passage, from 'Measuring the density of negatives', published in 'Photography', 1890. 'Having ourselves criticised Captain Abney's photometer adversely, we cannot complain if his criticisms of our instrument are possibly more severe than they might otherwise have been. We would have passed no remarks on Captain Abney's instrument were it not that we know that a repetition of many of our experiments, if made with his photometer, would lead to entirely different and, as we believe, erroneous results.'
Im still waiting after 300 posts why no one can explain what Ev"0" is in the image surely someone knows ,ive just had to ask Illah and waiting an answer.
