Two popular photographers and YouTube personalities are suggesting that the many of the most common terms in photography are, well, stupid. You decide whether or not the current photography vocabulary needs revamping.
While doing my routine browsing across the Internet, I stumbled upon a video hosted by YouTubers Tony and Chelsea Northrup. The video suggests that many of the terms we commonly use in the photography industry are stupid. Terms such as “stops,” “fast,” “shutter speed,” “ISO,” “focal length,” “f-stop,” “exposure triangle,” and “depth of field” are used in the video as examples. The couple even suggests a few replacements you might want to add to your vocabulary.
Replacement: Bright — “Can you grab the brightest 35mm in my bag?”
Replacement: Depth of Sharpness — “Isolate your subject using a shallow depth of sharpness.”
Next time you’re around a group of photography professionals, drop a term like “depth of sharpness” and let me know how it goes. In the meantime, do you think many of the terms used in the industry today are dated? Give an example and an idea for a new or replacement word or term in the comments below.
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words." - Philip K Dick
I spent 40 years in professional theatre as a technician and designer. The terminology is nuts. Words that have literally no place outside the biz. Add to that the fact that the majority of my work was with dancers and dance companies, whose nomenclature goes back several hundred years, and is often in a foreign language (usually French).
In both cases, without the up and comers learning those languages, there would be no way to communicate from one person to another. And of all of them, dance is the one where it could easily be done (pas de deux, for example is a dance for two), but even the youngest dancer or the most grizzled techie has enough respect for the art to learn the terminology AS IT IS.
What is wrong with a "fast" lens or "depth of field?" Nothing. As it is now, we are all speaking the same language. I would suggest these folks take a trip to the Amazon rainforest, and try communicating with the natives down there. Maybe then they'll understand what it would be like to suddenly change so many photo terms.
They're only raising this criticism to sell their book, however.
Yeah, except I learned it as a, “wide aperture lens,” not to be confused with, “wide angle lens.” So, to stop that confusion, someone decided to CHANGE the nomenclature to, “fast”, which makes no sense, since ‘fast’ is a designation of speed/velocity, as in,
TONY: “How fast can that lens focus?”
CHELSEA: “It is faster than the Sigma, but not as fast as the Nikkor.”
TONY: “So the Tammy is a relatively fast lens?”
CHELSEA: “Yes, but it is only an 𝑓/1.7, and not an 𝑓/1.4 like the Sigma and Nikkor.”
DON: “So is it slower than the others?”
CHELSEA & TONY: “It's faster than the Nikkor!”
…and therein lies the problem.
To call a lens “fast,” because it allows you to use a “faster shutter speed,” —bad nomenclature, ‘they’ mean shorter exposure time— due to its wider aperture, is ridiculous, since the wider aperture affects DoF and shorter exposure time affects motion blur. If anything, they need to call it a “thin lens,” —not to be confused with a long focal length lens— or “short lens,” —not to be confused with a ‘pancake lens, or wide angle lens, or compact lens— since the wider aperture results in a thinner/shorter DoF.
…Until someone changes a different nomenclature to avoid confusion with a Fresnel thin lens, or a “short focal length lens.”
…Or we can simply go back to calling it a “wide aperture lens.” before some idiot decided to dumb it down in a book for his readers. One cannot change nomenclature because one does not know how to explain the correct nomenclature, but that is what many photography authors have done over the years.
Oh. This was all just a sales pitch. Okay.
I learned exposure from the box the film came in, if it was ASA 100 and sunny out and I was in the shade of a tree like it showed on the box it was most likely 125 shutter speed F5.6 or 8. And now with digital when I am changing the shutter speed of Fstop in order to better fit the situation, with the ability to factor in the ISO, I still, in my mind, am relating each to the other in stops so my exposure stays the same.
A rose by any other name still stinks the same.
There's just too much carryover from film into digital. My unfavorite example: dodge and burn.
…Unsharp mask.
Bear in mind that “Lightroom” uses a lot of nomenclature from the “light table,” and the “darkroom,” as does “DarkTable.” Indeed, they all do.
This is that kind of "humor" that makes channels lose subs.
WOW, after reading all the comments here, apparently, I am the only person who recognizes a farce?