“What the camera lens saw”

(A key ingredient of trusted photographs)

This term is simply an allusion to the camera-lens combination as a surrogate for what a person would have seen had they been in exactly the same place as the camera and lens.

The terms are used together — “camera” and “lens” — because with current technologies, both are required to record photographs; photos cannot be made with only a lens (no camera) or only with a camera (no lens).

NOTE: The phrase “What the camera recorded” is not used on this website because when discussing “light”-related aspects, what the camera records may require significant changes in order to not misrepresent the appearance of the scene (as per P7).

Cameras see differently than we see

The lens is analogous to the human eye and the camera is analogous to the human brain, but the comparison is not an exact one.

No photograph can show exactly “what the camera lens saw” the way a human would see a real-world scene, because cameras record things differently than does the human brain.

TTG naturally takes these differences into account, as does every news organization in the world.

That is why “what the camera lens saw” — like most other things on this website — is defined by rinairs and not by individual photographers.

Not just “what” but also “when”

As with the word “scene,” the phrase “what the camera lens saw” relates not just to place but also to time.

In other words, the phrase “What the camera lens saw” describes not only what scene was framed by the camera and lens but also what scene was framed by the camera and lens during the exposure(s) and not a moment before or after that time period (see #1708).

See also Do TTG photographs reflect “what the photographer saw” or “what the camera recorded”?