Exposure Value - EV and APEX

EV and APEX

The Additive system of Photographic EXposure (APEX) proposed in the 1960 ASA standard for monochrome film speed, ASA PH2.5-1960, extended the concept of exposure value to all quantities in the exposure equation by taking base-2 logarithms, reducing application of the equation to simple addition and subtraction. In terms of exposure value, the left-hand side of the exposure equation became

where A_v (aperture value) and T_v (time value) were defined as:

and

with

• A the relative aperture (f-number)
• T the exposure time (“shutter speed”) in seconds

A_v and T_v represent the numbers of stops from f/1 and 1 second, respectively.

Use of APEX required logarithmic markings on aperture and shutter controls, however, and these never were incorporated in consumer cameras. With the inclusion of built-in exposure meters in most cameras shortly after APEX was proposed, the need to use the exposure equation was eliminated, and APEX saw little actual use.

Though it remains of little interest to the end user, APEX has seen a partial resurrection in the Exif standard, which calls for storing exposure data using APEX values. See Use of APEX values in Exif for additional discussion.