Pro tip: I found out Kodak's shutter speed numbers are tied to some weird math

I was digging through an old repair manual for a Kodak Retina IIa last weekend, one from 1954 I got at a swap meet in Denver. Turns out those shutter speeds like 1/50 and 1/100 come from a logarithmic scale based on the reciprocal of focal length or something? Blew my mind because I always thought they were just random round numbers. Has anyone else stumbled on a random fact about camera history that made you look at things different?

3 comments

3 Comments

williams.sage28d ago

Wow, that's the kind of deep nerd stuff I love finding in old manuals.

spencer_coleman28d ago

Totally agree @williams.sage. That stuff is gold once you dig in.

ray35628d ago

Unless you're reading them in the original sepia tone on microfiche, you're missing half the context.