In Chemical Photography
In photography, reciprocity refers to the relationship whereby the total light energy – proportional to the total exposure, the product of the light intensity and exposure time, controlled by aperture and shutter speed, respectively – determines the effect of the light on the film. That is, an increase of brightness by a certain factor is exactly compensated by a decrease of exposure time by the same factor, and vice versa. In other words there is under normal circumstances a reciprocal proportion between aperture area and shutter speed for a given photographic result, with a wider aperture requiring a faster shutter speed for the same effect. For example, an EV of 10 may be achieved with an aperture (f-number) of f/2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/125 s. The same exposure is achieved by doubling the aperture area to f/2 and halving the exposure time to 1/250 s, or by halving the aperture area to f/4 and doubling the exposure time to 1/60 s; in each case the response of the film is expected to be the same.
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