"T" stop and "F" stop

[AlejandroGomez]

I'm a begginer in the art of cinematography.

Can anyone explain me the difference between the "f" stop and the "t" stop. I read something about that the aperture in "t" stop is more extremely accurate.

That is?

Greetings,

[Adrian Sierkowski]

T stops are a measure of the light transmitted (I think of them as Transmission stops) which is used to set exposure.

F stops are a mathematical ratio which is used to determined Depth of Field (which is why I think of them as focus stops).

 

99.9% of the time they are interchangeable and so close to the same it is of no difference. The time they start to very is as you start to add in more and more glass in the lens (such as in a zoom lens) where you may have a F 2.8 lens which only has a T of say an F4.

[David Mullen ASC]

To add to that, think of a T-stop as a "corrected" f-stop mark on the lens, corrected for the actual amount of light that gets through, which is often slightly less than the theoretical amount based on f-stop, which is based on a physical dimension. So typically a T-stop may be a 1/6th or a 1/3rd at most "stopped" down from the f-stop, i.e. a lens that opens to f/2.8 only transmits a T/2.9 amount of light.