History of the Stop-Of-Light Handout
Posted by | Richard Stromberg | March 16, 2009
Remember, as with all of my prose, put tongue in cheek and Smile. A grain is way too much salt to take while reading this.
I first published my stop-of-light charts in the final years of the last century. I was attempting to make something that would help my students understand the importance of the numbers between what is considered the "whole" stop/step numbers. These numbers have been in common use for about the last 60 years plus. For photographers with many years of experience these in-between numbers have never had much consequence. The numbers have always been part of the numerical equation but never showed up on cameras until the late 1980's. Before that, most of the time, photographers just concentrated on getting the correct exposure.
Download the Stops of Light Handout, PDF (64kb).
I would like you to believe that I am smart enough to know and understand the high math that these equations require. I do NOT have the math skills, and I am NOT smart enough, to understand any of this. Understanding the required math has little to do with good photography (although there is always someone in class who just can't get past the numbers).
One night after my insomnia kicked in I started to play around with my new camera and decided to see if I could make sense of f-stops and shutter speeds for my students. I set my camera on manual and used the two dials (one for f-stops and one for shutter speeds) on my camera to see the numbers/settings on the LCD screen, that was on the top of the camera I was using (you can also see the numbers when looking through the prism on a SLR camera). As I dialed the different settings I wrote the settings down, so I could produce the charts.
There are two charts, one for 1/2 stops and one for 1/3 stops. The bold numbers are the standard "whole" stops and the in-between numbers are the 1/2 or 1/3 fractions. (After I spent an hour or so concentrating on these settings I slept like a baby, fits and starts and crying until morning.)
If you don't understand the charts or are more confused, please don't worry about it. Just put the charts down for later and pay attention to what's really important, "the moment of the photograph". Over time "learning will occur". Que sera, sera. R. ;-)
"Please note: these re-designed charts were done by Keith Skutt, Thank You Keith