Is photography for technical documentation and/or measurement off topic?

Question

I've volunteered to have this question closed (and leave the substantial answer rather than delete it) because indeed it is an XY question. I proposed to post a substantially improved new question, but then I saw a comment that it should be closed:

...because it is about using a camera as a measuring device rather than about photography.

Have guidelines been established about photography that produces photographs for the purposes of measurement? Photography to enable the counting of baby wildlife (needs counting and size estimation), viruses or cells (photography through microscopes before analyzing with ImageJ , or stars are off-topic? I'm looking for some guidance before I post my non-XY version of my question. Thanks!

mattdm · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-01 16:16:13Z

The test I like to apply, and argue should be our standard one, is the same we've generally settled on for videography/cinematography:

The important thing is the intention, not the equipment used. This site is about the art, science, hobby, and business of photography. Photography is the making of pictures by means of a camera. If you are making or doing things that are not photographs using the same equipment (or file types, or software), this just isn't the place for it.

Here, you ask Is photography for technical documentation and/or measurement off topic? On the face of it, photography "for technical documentation" is on-topic: the goal is, after all, to make a photograph; and "for measurement" is off-topic: the goal is to have a measurement.

When it comes to photometry, photogrammetry, computer vision, and other topics, the true answer is often "cameras made for photography are a terrible choice for the thing you want to do, because the precision you want isn't a design consideration". It gets frustrating for everyone involved when that's the answer over and over again.

On the other side, when the question is about technical details of a camera module made for embedded use, the answers are unlikely to be of any interest or relevance to people who are looking to use cameras designed for photography for photography.

Because Stack Exchange tends to be technical in nature, born as it was out of a programming Q&A site, I think we need to be extra-firm in this. There are other places on the network which cater to those engineering challenges. As @dpollitt's answer explains in more depth, keeping this site focused makes it more interesting for and attractive to people interested in the main topic itself.

On the other hand, just as with video, if the question can be put in a frame (heh) which is generally relevant for photography, go for it. In fact, I think this is an excellent exercise: if you find that putting your question in the context of making photographs results in answers that aren't relevant to your use case, your use case probably wasn't on topic to begin with.

FWIW, I didn't downvote; I tend to reserve that for questions which are actively bad — hostile or extreeemely lazy or similar. — mattdm, Commented Feb 6, 2017 at 15:21
I can see you thought hard on this answer! So for the test case of the wildlife photographer where the ultimate goal was to document the number of young (requires counting and measuring) using high quality photographs, it may be OK to let that information slip in the second paragraph, but the question "Which camera is the best for measuring penguin height?" would fly no better than the penguins themselves.:) — uhoh, Commented Feb 6, 2017 at 15:28
I think the test you mention is really useful - might want to codify it, or at least keep track of it. "if you find that putting your question in the context of making photographs results in answers that aren't relevant to your use case, your use case probably wasn't on topic to begin with." — uhoh, Commented Feb 6, 2017 at 15:32
I find this unnecessarily arbitrary. Who cares about a dictionary definition, and why should it limit the interests of a community? — N. Virgo, Commented Feb 12, 2017 at 4:05
@Nathaniel It's somewhat arbitrary, but I don't think unnecessarily so. Having a focus on photography makes the site more interesting to the community I want to have here. We don't necessarily need to use this particular definition, but we do need a definition. — mattdm, Commented Feb 13, 2017 at 16:32

Michael C · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-31 13:26:58Z

4

In the past there have been more than a few such questions that were received well, or at least tolerated well. More recently there seems to have been strong resistance to such questions from a small but very vocal and active minority. One of the weaknesses of the SA format is that it only takes 5 users who are very active, or even a single mod, to shut down specific types of questions if there isn't a groundswell of support for such questions from a much larger group of users.

answered Jan 31, 2017 at 13:26

Michael C

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