Talk:Science of photography

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	This article is within the scope of Wikipedia:WikiProject Filmmaking, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to filmmaking. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
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	This page is within the scope of WikiProject History of photography, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles on the history of photography on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
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Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. This article has been tagged since January 2007.

This page should be an intelligent redirection page towards the correct terms and science to describe the workings of any aspect of the photographic process (digital, film, etc). It should include anything pertinent to photography that is too specific for the page about the specific science, but too technical to be explained on the photography page. In a quick search, most of the information is available already on wikipedia, but it could be explained with more relevance towards actually building cameras and taking pictures (engineering concerns, generating artistic effects, etc). (I do not claim to have achieved this yet; what exists currently is a brief, brief overview). This page does not intend to be a collection of camera manuals, nor a page on how to take good pictures.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hvc (talk • contribs) .

I agree with Hvc above about the scope and direction this page needs. In recent edits this page seems to have become confusing and disjointed with long rambling passages that may be copied and pasted from somewhere. I am new to this "wikipedia business" so I am reluctant to make the wholesale changes I believe this page needs.

I think it should be just a brief discussion of the general nature of photography, and links to more specific pages elsewhere. 1p2o3i 17:41, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Quality of this page 2 f-number and aperture diameter 3 Is it science or technology? 4 Discussion on wrong page? 5 Photography in general, or filmmaking? 6 Reciprocity: failure

[edit] Quality of this page

This page was till a few days ago in bad shape. Just a note here to thank the latest editor, I believe it was Imroy, for great work making it much better. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 1p2o3i (talk • contribs).

Yep, that was me. Thanks. I came upon this page randomly and noticed its poor shape. The first thing I did was remove the large amount of very poorly written content that Cinegrefx/210.210.36.160 had recently copied into the article [1] (some people seem to treat Wikipedia as a place to dump any old content they can lay their hands on, without any thought given to the structure or cohesion of the article). Then I went through and did a lot of editing of the text and formatting. I'm sure a lot more could be done with this article, I simply did the things that were easy and obvious to me. --Imroy

[edit] f-number and aperture diameter

I have edited the article to remove the common misconception that the f-number is equal to the ratio of the focal length to the aperture diameter. It is not. The f-number is equal to the ratio of the focal length to the diameter of the entrance pupil of the lens. The latter is proportional to the diameter of the aperture. It is true that doubling the f-number halves the diameter of the aperture but it is not true that the aperture diameter is equal to the focal length divided by the f-number.--Srleffler 04:33, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is it science or technology?

I think the name of this page is a bit controversial. Though the subject matter is about scientific issues of photography, it is not forming a branch of science. The name of the page may imply that there exists such a branch. It is important to note that the photography technology does not tend to discover new rules or establish new theories (as what usually science does), instead it is using the current state of different sciences like physics, chemistry, etc to make better products and develop more convenient techniques. So I wouldn't call that the science of photography. --Neshatian 14:56, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I would like to respectfully offer a second opinion.

I think the name is actually very good. Every aspect of photography has a huge body of science behind it. Photography could be said to be a blend of optics - chemistry - digital image capture - digital image processing - mechanical engineering - all sciences, or technologies so based on science, that no explanation of photography's physical aspects can take place without touching on some aspect of science.

I think the title implies that the article relates to the science and technology underlaying photography.

While photograpy is not a major branch of science such as physics, chemistry or astronomy, advances in photography have been a continuing area of current research for something like a century. Had photography not existed, I would guess much current knowledge in optics and chemistry would not exist. 1p2o3i 17:59, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion on wrong page?

I'm totally new to this editing and discussion process and the conventions of wikipedia, but the article itself seems to have discussion items on it that would properly belong here on the discussion page. 16:45 Sept 3 2006

[edit] Photography in general, or filmmaking?

The boxed header at the top of this discussion page which contains the words, "This article is part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Filmmaking....", suggests this article relates exclusively to motion picture filmmaking. However the title" Science of Photography" would suggest a much broader purpose. A reader would reasonably conclude the article pertains to the science of all photographic imaging; still; moving; film based; digital... 16:54 Sept 3 2006

[edit] Reciprocity: failure

The section on reciprocity, which derives from the original contribution of an anonymous editor in Sept. 2005, is pretty much a failure, and all wrong. The linked main article is more correct. I may work on fixing it, or may just remove it and direct to the other article. Film speed is really not part of the concept; this statement is bogus: "Halving the amount light exposing the film can be achieved...by...decreasing the film speed by one stop." Dicklyon 20:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)