Using a DSLR as a meter

[Marko]

What Jack said.

A quick look at Webster produces two definitions of the term "artifact":

1.
a: Something created by humans usually for a practical purpose; especially: an object remaining from a particular period <caves containing prehistoric artifacts>

b: Something characteristic of or resulting from a particular human institution, period, trend, or individual

2. A product of artificial character (as in a scientific test) due usually to extraneous (as human) agency

A histogram is not created by humans, it is immaterial - a graphic display of numeric measurement results - therefore it cannot be an artifact.

Film, on the other hand, seems to satisfy all the above definitions...

Now, shall we leave the dead horse alone or should we keep looking up word definitions? Say "delusional"...

[Robert Hughes]

A quick look at Webster produces two definitions of the term "artifact":
2.A product of artificial character (as in a scientific test) due usually to extraneous (as human) agency
A histogram is not created by humans, it is immaterial - a graphic display of numeric measurement results - therefore it cannot be an artifact.

Nonsense - a histogram is an output of a digital light sensor recording a scene, just as much as a jpeg file is, and fits squarely into your definition #2, as much as any other experimental measurement would.

[Marko]

Nonsense - a histogram is an output of a digital light sensor recording a scene, just as much as a jpeg file is, and fits squarely into your definition #2, as much as any other experimental measurement would.

Then so is what you call an "analog" light meter - essentially a digital sensor reading the light intensity of the scene (or its part) and producing a discrete electrical signal as a result. Depending on the particular instrument, the strength of that signal is represented either by the movement of a solenoid with a needle attached or via a digital readout, as in more modern light meters.

A histogram is simply a distribution curve for a certain number of such readings. 10-20 million of them, depending on the vintage of a particular DSLR used.

If you are right, then both are artifacts, only one is much more precise than the other.

[Alan Davenport]

Then so is what you call an "analog" light meter - essentially a digital sensor reading the light intensity of the scene (or its part) and producing a discrete electrical signal as a result.

There ain't nuthin' digital in my Luna Pro F; from the sensor to the needle it's stepless, as in "analog."

A histogram is simply a distribution curve for a certain number of such readings. 10-20 million of them, depending on the vintage of a particular DSLR used.

Ten to twenty million readings, when we're talking about something a human brain has to digest, is beyond even science fiction. Few of us really comprehend even the magnitude of such numbers, much less do we have the computing power in our heads to decipher what they mean. No advantage there.

If you are right, then both are artifacts, only one is much more precise than the other.

So you agree the needle is better!

[Jack Dahlgren]

So you agree the needle is better!

The needle and the damage done...

[Robert Hughes]

Uh, what were we talking about?

[Marko]

At first, we were having a discussion about using a DSLR as a light meter for LF. Then we defined the meaning of "artifact" but we never got to delusion:

1: the act of deluding: the state of being deluded

2.
a: something that is falsely or delusively believed or propagated

b : a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary;

also: the abnormal state marked by such beliefs