And if they are in a course of study that is designed to prepare one to design a lens, such math would be in my opinion justified. At that point it would be for an understanding of subject matter that would be used whether directly or indirectly. But if that is to teach a photographer how to get an F stop to exact precision, I'd submit a light meter would be a better subject. They would need to know if they had to design the light meter, but that's like saying a nurse and a doctor need the same courses. Teaching one to think is one of the most difficult challenges. In fact it rarely happens. More often than not one teaches themselves to think. Instructors at best can submit challenges that require it. They can guide, but not everyone has the ability to reason at the same level. Require the judgement be made quickly, and the number of people that can process the information and come to a workable conclusion drops. Add the pressure of money, and it drops again. Put lives on the line and have to make it fast, and the number of people that can handle the challenge is reduced again. Make the decision have to be quick, involve a lot of money, put lives on the line, and put the life of the person making the decision on the line as well, and you have a fairly small group of people that can thrive in that environment. Guess I am getting old. The biggest thing I learned in college had nothing to do with what I had to learn, but how fast I had to learn it. I ended up teaching myself how to teach myself to learn. From: owner-photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of PhotoRoy6@xxxxxxx Sent: 22 January 2011 15:54 To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students Subject: Re: f number adjustment to increase light level This was my first reaction too on reading the thread this morning.. But isn't education besides teaching facts suppose to teach one how to think and analysis? Also we assume that the students are taking the course to become photographers while they may in fact be going to engineering lens and other similar jobs in the photographic industry. Roy In a message dated 1/21/2011 10:14:05 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, lew1716@xxxxxxxxx writes: Yes, but a quick look at any lens or light meter tells you just as much without any calculations at all. Each stop signifies a factor of 2, so to get 4x the amount of light, click over 2 stops & you're done. Teaching a student all this math (if this is what the thread is about, I wasn't in on the beginning) is very academic. It's not anything a photographer with a camera in hand would ever do.
