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Any tricks to thinking in meters than feet

So you expect crack heads to know proper usage?

At least now you have enough money for that new lens.

- Leigh
 
No, I just expect crackheads to pay cash.

I'm saving for an 8 litre Bentley; I have all the lenses I need for now.
 
In the days when I started to learn photography as a teenager in the early 1950s range finders weren't very common and coupled range finders even less and I learned how to judge distance by trying to estimate the distance to an object and then measuring it, as time passed I became more accurate with my guestimates until I could do it every time, and even today I still find it very useful particularly when shooting street I can set the distance by scale without putting the camera to my eye before I'm ready to take the shot.
 
E. von Hoegh said:
If that's true, (i haven't researched it), why do my post-WWII measuring tools agree with pre-WWII British measurements?
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I recall reading something about similar parts made in the UK and the US during WWII which were not identical due to a slight difference in the inch.

If the pre WWII British standard was adopted by the US then that would explain why your tools match.

From Wikipedia:
Industrial Inch

In 1930 the British Standards Institution adopted an inch of exactly 25.4 mm. The American Standards Association followed suit in 1933. By 1935 industry in 16 countries had adopted the "industrial inch" as it came to be known.
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Seems to be a pre-war standardisation but it is likely old equipment was still in use during wartime. I think the difference is only a few thousandths of an inch though.


Steve.
 
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OK. I just asked a friend in Denmark who owns a company that manufacturers measuring instruments. Before that he was
QC manager for a large Danish company for over 20 years, so he has considerable experience with metric measurements.

He said fractions down to 1/4, and occasionally 1/8, are commonly used in speech, but very seldom in writing.

So I guess you and I are both right.

- Leigh
 
I will agree with that. I will often say half or quarter of a millimetre but I wouldn't ever write it down like that.


Steve.
 
Steve Smith said:
I will agree with that. I will often say half or quarter of a millimetre but I wouldn't ever write it down like that.


Steve.
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I use fractions coversationally, but on a drawing or specification it would be a decimal - unless the spec or drawing is for me only.
 
One thing which causes confusion between us in England and the US part of the company is the use of the term 'mil'. We say it as a shortened version of millimetre but our American colleagues use it as the term for 1/1000".


steve.
 
Well, since definiton 1, is the US definition, it must be the correct version...he

mil 1 (ml)
n.
1. A unit of length equal to one thousandth (10-3) of an inch (0.0254 millimeter), used, for example, to specify the diameter of wire or the thickness of materials sold in sheets.
2. A milliliter; one cubic centimeter.
3. A unit of angular measurement used in artillery and equal to 1/6400 of a complete revolution.

per
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/mil
 
Steve Smith said:
One thing which causes confusion between us in England and the US part of the company is the use of the term 'mil'. We say it as a shortened version of millimetre but our American colleagues use it as the term for 1/1000".


steve.
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Every machinist I know says "thou" for 1/1,000.
 
Fractions are precise 22/7 but decimals are sometimes not. perhaps we should measure in Rods.
 
cliveh said:
Fractions are precise 22/7 but decimals are sometimes not. perhaps we should measure in Rods.
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Nerds love decimals, they give the sense of infinite precision. The stroke of the Fiat S76 engine was 9 27/32". I like that better than saying it was 250mm, or 9.8425"
 
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as grandpa used to say:

"The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it."
 
jnanian said:
as grandpa used to say:

"The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it."
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Amen to that. I've always wished my speedometer was calibrated to furlongs per fortnight. That way, there'd never be any confusion as to fast it's really going.
 
Mr Bill said:
Amen to that. I've always wished my speedometer was calibrated to furlongs per fortnight. That way, there'd never be any confusion as to fast it's really going.
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Ha! Eons ago, one of our tasks for practicing the conversion of units, was to convert the speed of light from miles per second, to furlongs per fortnight.

Thanks for the reminder of old times.

I've never quite understood the big deal about using metric or US measurements. For precise work, you grab a measuring device calibrated in the right units. For photography, unless you are focusing by a scale on a lens for close work, does it really matter? Metric infinity is pretty much the same as imperial infinity. It just has that strange Euro look to the colors... ;-)
 
ambaker said:
I've never quite understood the big deal about using metric or US measurements.
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You mean metric or British Imperial measurements!

(apart from some of your volume measurements which you just got wrong!).


Steve.
 
Steve Smith said:
You mean metric or British Imperial measurements!

(apart from some of your volume measurements which you just got wrong!).


Steve.
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We don't do imperial here. Revolution and all that... ;-)

Though I would rather pay $3.09 for an imperial gallon, than a US gallon...

What I want to know is how the money got so jacked up? A tuppence, seriously? Schillings and farthings?
 
ambaker said:
Schillings and farthings?
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Shillings. Schilling sounds Dutch.

It's easy. Tuppence is obvious (two pence). Four farthings to a penny, twelve pennies to a shilling, twenty shillings to a pound (240 pence). And don't forget the Guinea - worth one pound and one shilling. It was originally a one pound coin but the price of gold went up so the value of the coin had to otherwise it would have been worth more in gold than its face value.


Steve.
 
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