Is there a colloquial term for "shutter speed#

I am writing a text about exposure and all these numbers. Running out of vocabulary.

Is there a similar term for shutter speed as “f-stop” for “aperture value”?

I heard “one over” in a video from Kai M, but he is quite exotic…

Interesting question - other than something like “I’ll set the shutter to one five hundredth” I don’t think I know of anything…

Exposure time.

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“Shutter speed” or “Speed” is already colloquial since the number is a time/duration.

And while I’m nitpicking, an “f-stop” is a variation/delta of aperture, not an absolute value: Between the f/2 and f/4 apertures, the difference is two f-stops.

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nit picking is very welcome…:slight_smile:

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There’s also some confusion between f-number (the relative aperture of the lens) and f-stop (a stop is a physical thing, in this case the values available in a particular lens).

It’s relatively recently that stills cameras got stopped lenses (mid-60s), until then you were free to set any f-number in the iris range. You now normally see a geometric sequence of (√2)^(EV).

You then also get T-numbers which are f-numbers adjusted for the transmittance of the lens.

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I would say the technically correct terms are f-number, shutter speed, and ISO sensitivity.

That said, terms like “aperture priority” and “time priority” are a bit at odds with that. And anyway, what the f-number fraction specifies is the diameter of the entrance pupil, as opposed to the aperture.

Perhaps we should be like Facebook relationship statuses: camera settings: “it’s complicated”. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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@rstein Speed sometimes was also used to indicate the sensitivity of the film, like a slow KB14 versus a fast Tri-X or the ultra high speed Agfa Isopan Record.

@bastibe PASM = Professional, Amateur, Selfies, Mysterious.

Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Sweden

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Here is an example without physical stops:

Set to 1/117s and f/9.8. :wink:

Note the red dot on the aperture scale just behind f/11 and on the distance scale (barely visible on the right in front of the 15). If you set the camera to the red dots you get sharp images from infinity to some steps in front of you.

Nice camera, Zeiss Ikon Telma from 1937 or 38.

Yes, I read speed always as film speed.

Thank you all!

I just had a simple question, no conclusive answer (good for me, I had no obvious lack of knowledge) and we could nerd out a bit. :wink:

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Even for cameras without shutters? :thinking:

And to be even more pedantic, their were two International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) standards for film sensitivity - one arithmetic based on the ASA standard (although there were two of those too), one logarithmic based on the DIN standard. And for digital cameras, there are 5 listed methods in the ISO standard, the manufacturer is free to choose which one to use.

An electronic shutter is still a shutter.

I suppose human eyes don’t have a shutter of any kind, but just varying integration times per cell. I hope we’ll get there eventually. But for the time being, shutter speed is probably appropriate.

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And if you have a plate camera where you just remove the lens cap, count to three and replace it?

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My eyes definitely close, my eye lids are like a shutter.

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just remove the lens cap, count to three and replace it?

Yes. That is your shutter.

(I have a feeling that we over-think and/or over-complicate things.)

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This! And I am trying to write a text with simple but not really false explanations….

Hmmmm. But if you use an electronic, or a mechanical (built-in), or a
lens-cap-shutter should not matter. A shutter shuts off or lets in
light.

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Signal collection time or synonyms. Not colloquial but descriptive.