FAQ 13 - P3

“One view”

  • 1301. What’s the point of P3?

    P3 ensures that every TTG photograph depicts only “one view.”

  • 1302. But which view is the “one view” if the TTG photographer is allowed to combine multiple exposures, as per P5?

    That is never an issue.

    P3 specifies “no repositioning or re-aiming of the camera or lens between exposures,” and P4 rules out showing multiple scenes if multiple exposures are combined (see FAQ #14).

    See also the page on satodes

  • 1303. And the “one view” principle is why P3 also bars the stitching together of successive exposures of different views into a panorama the way smartphones do?

    Yes.

    A stitched panorama made from successive exposures (the way a smartphone makes them) may look like “one view,” but in fact that panorama is the combination of multiple views recorded one after another.

    No photo taken with the “Pano” setting on a phone can ever qualify as TTG, because the combination of photos (the panorama) is disqualified and because there is no way to isolate a single exposure from that “Pano” combination.

  • 1304. Why does P3 say that everything in the photo has to be “recorded on one device”?

    (P3 is here)

    Because combining views recorded from different perspectives would not satisfy the “one view” requirement.

  • 1305. Why does P3 prohibit using more than one focal length to make a TTG photograph?

    (P3 is here)

    Because different focal lengths can be used to provide different perspectives, and every TTG photo can only have one perspective (or “view”).

    This prohibition is consistent with rinairs.

  • 1306. What about repositioning or re-aiming the camera during a single exposure?

    Repositioning or re-aiming the camera during a single exposure (including panning) does not disqualify a photo from P3 as long as the result meets P7.

    (#1303 above addresses moving the camera between multiple exposures.)

    More

  • 1307. Why doesn’t panning disqualify photographs from P3’s “one view” requirement?

    (“Panning” refers to smoothly and continuously re-aiming the camera to follow a moving subject.)

    Because a constant relationship is always maintained between the camera and its view of some part of the moving subject.

    If that relationship isn’t maintained, then the photograph will be too blurred overall to meet P7.

  • 1308. Sweep panoramics are disqualified by P3, but if a vista were photographed by pivoting a camera around and recording a series of photos that are not stitched together but presented next to each other, could the result qualify as TTG?

    Yes, each photograph in such a series would count as “one view” if it is clear they are distinct photographs. Each photograph could qualify for the TTG label.

    But that is only the case if the photos are not joined seamlessly together to imply to viewers that they are seeing a single photograph where there actually is a series of photographs.

    If the series of successive exposures were presented in a way that leads viewers to think it is a single image, it would be disqualified from P3 and from the Trust Test.

  • 1309. What about using a very wide-angle lens to make a single exposure and then cropping it to a long panoramic proportion?

    The resulting image would be eligible to qualify for the TTG label.

    The point of P3’s “no panoramics” statement is to prevent stitching together successive views recorded while moving the camera or shifting the lens between exposures, not to prevent photographs of wide vistas.

  • 1310. Why does P3 stipulate focus maximization?

    What is focus maximization? | View P3

    Because a central tenet of reportage photography — the standard on which TTG is based — is that the image presented to viewers cannot show less in focus than the camera recorded.

    Couldn’t a less-strict label be created that allowed blurring undesirable areas of the photo?

  • 1311. When is optical plausibility ever going to be an issue?

    Optical plausibility (required by P3) will only be an issue when photographers manually combine exposures that have different focus points.

    (All mass-marketed devices that automatically combine exposures recorded within a single second automatically create optically plausible images.)

    But given the limitations set by P5 — including the difficulty of manually refocusing and shooting multiple photos within a single second — optical plausibility is for now largely a theoretical issue.


See also the “P3” tab on the page “What the public knows about how undoctored photographs work

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