Talk:f/8 and be there

Latest comment: 3 months ago by Bensci54 in topic Requested move 24 January 2024


f/8 explanation edit

While it's correct to point out that f/8 is in the middle of the f-stop range for many lenses, the explanation for why this might be desirable seems very muddled. Linking to Diffraction and Optical aberration might be helpful. Voxphoto (talk) 16:20, 11 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 24 January 2024 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Bensci54 (talk) 18:18, 31 January 2024 (UTC)Reply


Ƒ/8 and be thereF/8 and be there – Destination for move is a redirect (with edits) to the original. Requesting a swap of destination (F/8 and be there) be the article, with old article Ƒ/8 and be there be a redirect to the new destination. The original article, with 'hooked Ƒ', even when lowercased with DISPLAYTITLE, is merely a stylistic decoration (implying or looking like a mathematical/formula "function" 'f'). The photographic notation "f/8", "F8", etc., is read as 'eff-eight', and the 'f' is just shorthand for "focal length". It's often displayed as a script-f ('𝑓', Unicode letter U+1D453, "Mathematical small f"), but that's just a stylistic display, equivalent to a LaTeX/math font for 'f'. The article uses 'Ƒ' (Unicode U+0191, "Latin Capital Letter F with Hook"), and lowercases it with 'ƒ' (U+0192, "Latin Small Letter F with Hook"). Additionally, at least two screen readers don't actually read the 'f with hook'. It's typographically, syntactically, and accessibility-wise, simply wrong.  — sbb (talk) 22:57, 19 January 2024 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). Warm Regards, ZI Jony (Talk) 17:40, 24 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

  • Shouldn't the title then be 𝑓/8 and be there, with the commonly-used letter (U+1D453)? 162 etc. (talk) 23:47, 19 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
    I don't suggest that. While '𝑓' is stylistically nice, it's just style. The 'f'/'𝑓'/whatever is really just 'f' for "focal length". Compare to f-number. Most articles, blogs, etc., don't even bother with stylizing it anymore. Primarily I assume because it's just that: style. Several lens manufacturers use "F4" or whatever (capitalizing, not using a slash). I think that Wikipedia should try to specifically _reduce_ the emphasis on sort of "branding style" (c.f., "KoЯn", "Se7ven", etc.), and just go with the simplest lowest-common-denominator, which is just "f/8 and be there". Which is exactly what 99.9% of people would type if trying to convey that.  — sbb (talk) 00:17, 20 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
    Adding to my previous comment, without DISPLAYSTYLE "correcting" the article title, "F/8..." is just as correct as "f/8...", whereas with '𝑓', there's no upper-case variant for it. It's only written as script-f because most historical typesetting used serif fonts, and it's referred to as a variable shorthand for 'focal length'. We don't call the denominator, which is N = f/D, ("8", in this case) '𝒩' (U+1D4A9, "Mathematical Script Capital N") because italic N suffices where N ({{mvar|N}}) isn't typographically available. Similarly with '𝒟' (U+1D49F, "Mathematical Script Capital D"). Let's not over- or misuse Unicode characters when we don't need to. Especially for article titles.  — sbb (talk) 00:35, 20 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
    Sorry for 3rd reply to you: also, at least testing with Apple (macOS, iOS) Voiceover, the '𝑓' you suggest isn't read by the screen reader. It just says "[tiny gap] /8 and be there ...". So from an accessibility standpoint, '𝑓' doesn't improve the situation at all.  — sbb (talk) 01:02, 20 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • Support as long as we continue to lowercase the title with DISPLAYTITLE. f/8 is correct. F/8 is not. Note that the f-number template (f/8) does not use a Unicode hooked-f character. It's just an italic f with cascading styles that encourage the browser to display it in a font where the f descends. --Srleffler (talk) 05:53, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • Support per above. See f-number. 162 etc. (talk) 21:08, 26 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.