P3D Re: Mathphobia rationalized

[George Gioumousis <georggms@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Andrea Blair wrote
> 
> >>>>George Gioumousis wrote: As someone who has taken stereo slides 
> since 1971, and who often does math for fun, I find Andrea's advice hard 
> to accept for myself.
> 
> I don't doubt that it is possible to take good pictures without much
> theory. In fact, there is stochastic photography, where one shoots at
> random (using up lots of film), and discards the poor images. <snip>
> 
> Ansel Adams makes quite a point of using theory and experiment to
> establish proper exposure. He also has some very good advice on 
> the relationship between focal length and distance to get a natural
> appearance. If he considers these as worthy of study, who are we to
> say "don't bother".<<<<
> 
> Contrary to popular belief, there are actually people in the real world 
> that do not consider Ansel Adams to be the do all and end all in the 
> world of photography (I'm not saying I'm one of them). Some people 
On the other hand, he clearly is good enough that his ideas should be
considered, even if not emulated.
> follow the teachings and advice of other photographers of their choice. 
> Sometimes more than one. So let's put things in perspective.
> 
> IMHO - Everybody's right. We are all just offering a different way to 
> get to the same end result: an image we like.
> 
> My advice is to do what you are comfortable with. If you don't like what 
> one person says, don't do it. It's that simple. I think we have 
> confirmed in our discussions that many (or most, if not all) areas of 
> photography are open to numerous ways to accomplish the same task. If 
> you are comfortable with simple, there's nothing wrong with that. No one 
> should be intimidated into thinking that you *have* to have all the 
> complicated math formulas and calculations. Heck, we've even shown that 
> you don't need a light meter! But, be aware that there are alternative 
      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[Please note the comment on not needing a meter; I'll refer to it below.]
> solutions. If a simple way of shooting does not yield the results you 
> are happy with, know that there are other tools to further assist you. 
> By discussing the high-end math, we have shown people that there are 
> alternatives to look into.
> 
> Why do you find my advice hard to accept, George? Are you envious or 
> disgusted that I get good results with little effort?  {:>)  (I don't 
> consider my pictures taken at random - I do put some thought into how 
> far I move the camera and I don't waste *lots* of film - but, again, 
> that's relative.) I have nothing against people who use math. I just 
> feel in a lot of cases it's overkill and very intimidating to people new 
> to stereo. IMHO it's better to start simple and then develop a yearning 
> to embrace the math later, instead of being led to believe you *must* 
> learn the complicated math first and get fed up. Basics first.
> 
> Andrea S. Blair
> asblair@xxxxxxxxxxx
> 
I must admit I suffer from mathphilia almost as much as the rest of 
the world suffers from mathphobia. However, the tone of this thread,
to me, was that looking at the theory was a useless exercise, and
that is what I object to. 

Let me go to the particular, on your comment that the group has shown
that we can get results even without using a meter. In my serious 
photography I specialize in photographing wild-flowers with a high-end
SLR, with an auto-focussing macro lens and multiple options on auto
exposure. However, for reasons that I understand, I get much better 
results turning off the auto-exposure and using the f/16 rule. What 
galls me is that the f/16 rule mostly described in this group is 
dead wrong. Usually, the rule is stated as 100 speed film at f/16 at
1/100 of a second. As an afterthought, it is added that this only
works between 10 am and 3 pm.

A little bit of thought, maybe not physics or math, should suggest that
the season, the latitude, and the position in the time zone would affect
the amount of light. I know that there are more than six hours of f/16
in mid-summer at my latitude, and much less in mid-winter. I know because
I understand the theory, but before then I played with a reflected light
meter and a gray card, so I knew then by experiment. 

However, I am not jealous of your getting prizes and honors for your
pictures. I mostly get annoyed at the attitude that an interest in 
math is somehow weird, because it gives a bad impression to the 
youngsters. On the other hand, maybe I shouldn't worry about the
younger generation, I've had students fighting to get into the math
and computer science class I'm teaching at San Jose State University.
I'm sure some of them really care, even though a lot of them are
mainly interested in it as a requirement for graduation.

I do bring a few slides to a stereo club in this area, mainly
because I like to see them projected, but in the process they get
entered in the competition, and once in a while I place someplace.
Nice, but I don't take the pictures for the glory.

Then, right now some of my flat pictures are getting published in an 
article about my wife's California Native Plant garden, which is 
also nice. 

George


------------------------------