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Two Photographers Unknowingly Shot the Same Millisecond in Time

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Re: Two Photographers Unknowingly Shot the Same Millisecond in Time

#91

Post by ryan_j_naughton »

skrebbel wrote: post #36

This is typical birthday paradox stuff right? The chance that these two photographers would ever snap the same thing at the same time is small, but the chance that any two photographers, anywhere, would do so is, I bet, pretty big (even if you factor in millisecond precision). With photographers being photographers and the internet being the internet, there's also a pretty decent change that they'd find out about it…

I don't think the birthday paradox applies here. The birthday paradox requires a discrete set of pigeon holes, days of year, etc. If that set is infinite, then the countability [1] problem collapses.

While technically the world is discrete in space and time (planck length), for all intents and purposes it is infinite in practice.

[1] yes, there is countably infinite, but that doesn't work with the pigeon hole problem.

Re: Two Photographers Unknowingly Shot the Same Millisecond in Time

#92

Post by RivieraKid »

skrebbel wrote: post #36

This is typical birthday paradox stuff right? The chance that these two photographers would ever snap the same thing at the same time is small, but the chance that any two photographers, anywhere, would do so is, I bet, pretty big (even if you factor in millisecond precision). With photographers being photographers and the internet being the internet, there's also a pretty decent change that they'd find out about it…

> but the chance that any two photographers, anywhere, would do so is, I bet, pretty big

Not necessarily, but the the chance of any crazy coincidence happening and reaching HN homepage is quite big. Next time it might be two people with same name writing the exact same tweet independently. Or perhaps one guy winning the World Series of Poker two times in a row with the same winning hand.

When there's a million "kinds" of crazy coincidences, the chance of any one of them happening is much higher than chance of a specific one happening. This is kind of a selection bias, we only hear about the coincidences that happened.

Re: Two Photographers Unknowingly Shot the Same Millisecond in Time

#93

Post by carlmr »

spuz wrote: post #62
cbsmith wrote: post #28

Alternate title: two photographers learn about the birthday paradox...

Not really. The birthday paradox is a paradox because it describes a circumstance that seems unlikely but actually is not. In this case it both seems unlikely and IS unlikely. If it were not unlikely we would see it happen more often.

Like I posted somewhere else here, it likely happens hundreds of times a day (going by millisecond granularity and # of photos being taken per day in close vicinity in the world). That people afterwards see each others photos and find out about it is rather unlikely.

It probably happens most days in the Louvre at the Mona Lisa. Although she doesn't move very much.

Re: Two Photographers Unknowingly Shot the Same Millisecond in Time

#94

Post by abdulhaq »

The amazing thing here is not that they took a photo of the same thing at the same time, but that this fact was discovered.

With the vast data capture exercise that is the internet, coincidences and patterns can be identified in near real time. Making sense of it all, however, is not so quick :-)

Re: Two Photographers Unknowingly Shot the Same Millisecond in Time

#95

Post by ada1981 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #46
gjulianm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but I do not agree at all. First, the fact that they chose the same photo might not necessarily mean that photo is the "optimal choice" according to some algorithm: it can perfectly be a coincidence. I find it even more improbable that a tool that selects "the best photo of a bunch" is useful for a significant portion of the photographers (as in "it gives results according to their tastes") unless it takes into…

> First, the fact that they chose the same photo might not necessarily mean that photo is the "optimal choice" according to some algorithm: it can perfectly be a coincidence. Well, obviously it does mean that; the photo was the optimal choice according to the two algorithms used by those photographers to choose their picture. Does that mean it would also be selected by another equally good or superior algorithm? No.…

The algorithm could simply be "randomly select an image from all the burst frames."

Re: Two Photographers Unknowingly Shot the Same Millisecond in Time

#96

Post by yangyang »

I had the same thing happen with one of my photos of lightning in London. I actually thought my shot had been ripped off at first glance, then realised it was from a different angle.

Mine: https://www.flickr.com/photos/beechlights/2739042419/in/phot...

Alternative, from the Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/earth/2515...

Re: Two Photographers Unknowingly Shot the Same Millisecond in Time

#97

Post by brudgers »

[I felt like I was playing "Find 8 differences between these pictures" on the comics page]

I looked at the large images. Gendon's appears to have been shot slightly earlier based on two differences. 1. The crest of the background wave at the left is horizontal in Gendon's photo and turning down from photo left to right in Risman's. 2. The trough in front of the breaking wave has reached the front of the light house in Gendon's photo exposing a sunlit rock at the lower left of the low circular structure.

A rock broke wave is most photogenic at the moment of maximum spray extent. The water is at lowest velocity and the gestalt shape is briefly frozen...then gravity dominates and the moment collapses. The shape of the spray is the second most stable element in the scene. While it is the defining photographic moment, it is not clock correlated down at the millisecond level.

Re: Two Photographers Unknowingly Shot the Same Millisecond in Time

#99

Post by [deleted] »

lervag wrote: post #40
TehCorwiz wrote: post #23

This has always been one of my favorite photographic coincidences. https://calculatedimages.blogspot.com/2013/05/3d-lightning.h...

Google Chrome thinks this site is dangerous: Your connection is not private Attackers might be trying to steal your information from calculatedimages.blogspot.com (for example, passwords, messages, or credit cards). Learn more NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID The message details continues to say that > You cannot visit calculatedimages.blogspot.com right now because the website uses HSTS. Network errors and attacks ar…

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