Blenheim Orange Loc: Michigan

You are talking about choice of camera. Just grab one and start taking photos was always my approach.

NickGee Loc: Pacific Northwest

It's not odd at all, nor is it meaningless. Insofar as we can learn anything from looking at quality photographs, there is much to be gleaned from seeing how others manage exposure. It's not a big deal. But it is a deal.

NickGee Loc: Pacific Northwest

Cameras don't take pictures. People do.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

Understanding camera use involves (among other things) understanding how exposure settings can be optimum. When circumstances are demanding, the aperture shouldn't be any wider than it needs to be and shutter speed shouldn't be any faster than it needs to be. We can think of those lower limits as minimum aperture and shutter speed settings.

There is also an incentive to keep ISO low because high ISOs can be problematic.

Where priorities are concerned, aperture and shutter speed settings are more important than ISO settings because inappropriate aperture and shutter speed settings have more potential to be shot killers.

The above describes the situation where circumstances are demanding - for example low light, fast action, the need for something more than a shallow depth of field. Less demanding circumstances give us more leeway, but those aren't the circumstances that we need to worry about.

If a photographer acknowledges the above requirements when he/she chooses the exposure settings then there is something to be learned from their choices and it's worth knowing what settings they used (and why). OTOH if they weren't being guided by those requirements, it's possible they wouldn't be providing the best of examples. The shot may have come out OK but in those circumstances, taking meaning from the exposure values could be misleading. A common example of that is making the ISO unnecessarily high.

Sometimes the need for a minimum shutter speed isn't obvious, and the same can be said about aperture values. Those are the times when an explanation would be the most useful.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Well, you simply said "choices", which includes the camera.

Me? I shoot in Program mode most of the time, unless I want to specifically configure something a certain way.
If they don't explain the choice and reason behind it, the numbers mean nothing.
Unless one wants to guess.....

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

It is a teaching thing. One of the best ways to learn something is seeing and learning from multiple examples of something. So people see the images, know the circumstances from the articles, and then the examples of which settings worked to produce the results shown in the image.

Example: (excuse my reversion to my teaching days)
A picture of a moving subject, lets use a dune buggy in the desert.

High shutter speed = sharp buggy, sharp desert
Lower shutter speed = blurred buggy, sharp desert
Lower shutter speed with panning = sharp buggy and blurred desert

Then the same kind of sequence can go for aperture/depth of field.

Just because a lot of us on UHH (Hell, some here are better photographers than many famous pros.) already know that stuff doesn't mean everyone does. A lot of beginners and others, like newly retired people buy the magazines to learn.
Even some specialty pros know little about other types of photography. Someone who does 99.999% studio or set piece portraits may know next to nothing about action sports, landscape or wild animals and birds. And they may be getting ready to retire/go on vacation and plan on getting out and about a lot and want to learn about those types of photography.

To paraphrase Kipling, "There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, / And every single one of them is right.", well there are many types of phtography and very few people know a lot about all of them.

Just try using studio portrait settings at the race track and see what you get. LOTS OF BLURS

The first rule of becoming a writer = READ examples of the type of writing you want to do.

User ID

Yes. But what youre missing is something quite unrelated to photography. If you just stop thinking its about photography, youll probably answer your own question.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

But the camera records them.
Without the camera, one just has a memory.......

fantom Loc: Colorado

It is not necessarily meaningless when you look at that data in relation to the photo itself. Don't read the data as a stand alone generalized setting set, but as settings specific to that pic.

Blenheim Orange Loc: Michigan

In order of importance I am concerned with the subject; the light; the framing; the settings; the lens; the camera model; the camera manufacturer.

The reasons behind choices are usually pretty obvious by looking at the images - freeze subject motion, control depth of field, deal with low light conditions. But what do I know? Apparently, I can't even post in the right section. Thankfully, our resident pack of forum police were on duty.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Meaningless to some,
meaningful to others.

Who's right?
Each individual........
For their own reasons.

Is one wrong?
No.

Can each accept the other?
Usually not.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

If the settings were well chosen then they are a good example and worth knowing.

If, on the other hand, the ISO was several stops higher than it needed to be, the choice wasn't a good example and it's potentially misleading and/or confusing.

fantom Loc: Colorado

When I say it is "not necessarily meaningless" that means that it depends on the reader of the data. Simple.

fantom Loc: Colorado

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

That's one reason I'm not interested in the details.