Rule of f16

Nick Zentena wrote:

Sunny 16 start with you guessing (!!!) what the actual light level is.
Sure, it helps to get near when your meter dies. But i can't think of
any
reason to fall back on that "rule" at any other time. To safe time?
C'mon!

Not guessing. Thinking. If somebody shows you a pot of distilled water
boiling at sea level and tells you " I think that's 100C" do you need lab
grade testing gear with six digits of accuracy to tell you it's pretty
damn
close to 100C? I'm never off by more then 1/2 a stop with sunny/16 when
compared to my incident meter. That's alot better then some in camera
reflective meters. If I was off by more then that I'd wonder what was
wrong
with the meter.

Yes, guessing. While the boiling point of water (even the distilled variety)
is not a fixed entity, the weather is even less "thinkable". Remember the
terms used to describe the possible variations which would necessitate
bending the rule a bit? Welldefined terms like "hazy", "darker" etc.?
Unless you're using a meter, you're guessing. No more.

You say you're guessing (!!!) is never more than 1/2 stop off. Good. I
believe you.
Like i also believe people when they say they can handhold at 1/15 and get
good results...

Lassi Hippeläinen wrote:

A rule that complex is harder to use than a spot meter.

But unlike the spot meter, the rule can be carried in the head.

You're sure?

Anyway, unlike the rule, the spot meter is actually accurate.

"Bob Monaghan" wrote in message
...

wait, you are saying sunny-16 rules of thumb are "hard" and "complex"
versus learning the zone system and a spotmeter? ;-) How many amateur
photogs do you know who use the zone system and spot meters for color
slide work anyway? ;-)

Zone exposure with slide or digital is very easy: there are only 5 zones,
and you use only 3 of those (IV, V, and VI) for metering most of the time.

sorry you-all seem to have problems with these difficult terms like
"beach" and "snow" or "dark" versus light shadows ;-) Millions of
clueless amateur photographers (besides me ;-) have gotten billions of
good shots using just the little "paper" light meter film guides Kodak and
others provided with their boxes, again with such descriptions - basically
the sunny f/16 rules.

Only with negative film, and only if the lab can rescue incorrectly exposed
negatives.

Besides costing more than most amateur 35mm and many MF cameras, both my
analog and digital spot-meters have manuals that are much more complex
than sunny-16 rules, and not just in the densitometric applications
section either ;-)

That's a pointg. When I bought my spotmeter, it was the only one on the
shelf I could get a reading from without reading the manual.

But pretty much every consumer digital camera has a spot meter in it.
(Except for the Canon 300D, sigh.)

The sunny-16 rule is free, often included as part of
the instructions printed inside many film boxes, and pretty useful for
many situations. Similarly, the night exposure guides and other rules of
thumb are my starting points for tricky exposures, and a lot less weight
to carry around too ;-)

If you don't care about being off a stop or so, rules of thumb are fine. But
that's not acceptable for slide film.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

you mean "guessing", as in guessing whether or not the reflective meter is
reacting to a black cat in a coal bin style situation, or where the tiny
critical subject is somebody's face when highlighted by a spotlight on a
black stage, or that kind of metering challenge "guessing" situation? ;-)

and "guessing" whether that peeling paint is really zone V, or maybe it
should be VI? ;-) Or the computerized meters that let you average ten or
twenty spot readings so your "guess" of what an average for zone IV is
rather better than just your one spot meter reading "guess"? ;-)

and my favorite is those handheld meters where you have to guess when you
are metering too much of the sky and not enough of the ground because you
are holding it not quite at the right angle. Got one or more of those
meters, do you? Don't you think you are "guessing" when you guess where to
point it for a reading? Or how about those meters in the camera or prism?
Do you really know its response pattern? Lots of variations here too.
Again, you have to guess where the meter is really reading and responding
to in a complex pattern, as many actual meter test patterns will show ;-)

Incident light metering is generally better, IMHO, but there are lots of
situations where my cityscape and landscape subjects are in different
lighting than I am, esp. after storms or in fading lighting etc. Here
again, I have to "guess" whether the lighting I am in is close enough, or
is it a stop more or less than what is going on over there on that hill?
;p)

there are lots of slop factors in photography, which fortunately mostly
average out, from true light transmission (t-value) vs. f/stops to actual
film speed to processing variations (a biggie) to problematic high shutter
speed actual values to light meter accuracy.

I will also vouch for finding problems with meter settings or bad
batteries or spoiled wet selenium cells by using the sunny-16 rule for a
check. This has happened a lot more lately since some local camera
discount stores have taken to labeling cheapy Chinese made alkaline
batteries as MS-76a silver oxide cells "replacements" for my nikons etc.
Those dang batteries die in days or even hours of use instead of months
;-( So I would advise others to use sunny-16 to check up on your meters
as well, because in the end, it is all a "best guess" situation ;-)

grins bobm
--
************************************************** *********************
* Robert Monaghan POB 752182 Southern Methodist Univ. Dallas Tx 75275 *
********************Standard Disclaimers Apply*************************

Bob Monaghan wrote:

wait, you are saying sunny-16 rules of thumb are "hard" and "complex"
versus learning the zone system and a spotmeter? ;-)

Nope.
What is easily as complex as learning to use the zone system (well...) and a
spotmeter is knowing when the sunny-16 rule applies. Not the rule itself.

ah, this is news to me, as I have shot hundreds of rolls of slide film
with sunny-16 style rules. Seriously. Why not? I get rather good results,
and a lot of my walk-about photos are in stable daylight lighting. I am
rarely even half a stop off. I may mess up now and again, but I manage to
do that with a meter too ;-)

moreover, I tend to set hyperfocal settings and typical sunny-16 lighting
settings on my manual cameras. Then if I see a bird or other fast shot, I
just pull up the camera and shoot. Usually the lighting is close enough
that I get a good shot.

finally, when I really could use guidance, as in many night shots, the
meter is more problematic than not. Again, I have found the Kodak
nighttime shot starting points to be surprisingly good starting points
(though I admit I bracket for critical shots, but I would anyway). In any
case, issues like reciprocity and meter sensitivity (mercury lighting etc)
make nighttime metering as much of a guess as the paper film guides ;-)

my $.02 ;-)

bobm

--
************************************************** *********************
* Robert Monaghan POB 752182 Southern Methodist Univ. Dallas Tx 75275 *
********************Standard Disclaimers Apply*************************

"Bob Monaghan" wrote in message
...

you mean "guessing", as in guessing whether or not the reflective meter is
reacting to a black cat in a coal bin style situation, or where the tiny
critical subject is somebody's face when highlighted by a spotlight on a
black stage, or that kind of metering challenge "guessing" situation? ;-)

But those are exaclty the cases where spot metering is by far the best.

For the stage situation, set the camera to +1 EV compensation (caucasion
performer), focus/lock exposure with the meter/AF spot on performers face,
recompose, and shoot (before the lighting changesg). Works every time.

For the cat, decide what zone holds the amount of detail you want to show,
spot meter, shoot. You can't do that with an incident meter without knowing
whether that was a gray or black cat.

and "guessing" whether that peeling paint is really zone V, or maybe it
should be VI? ;-)

No, that's not guessing, that's looking. You do have eyes, don't you? You do
care what your slides/prints will look like and you think about that when
you compose? If so, you've already decided what zones you want to place
things in.

Silly rant by someone who can't use his equipment and is too cheap to buy
decent batteries snipped.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

Bob Monaghan wrote:

you mean "guessing", as in guessing whether or not the reflective meter is
reacting to a black cat in a coal bin style situation, or where the tiny
critical subject is somebody's face when highlighted by a spotlight on a
black stage, or that kind of metering challenge "guessing" situation? ;-)
[...]

No. I can see if the thing i'm pointing a meter at is a black cat in a
coalbin or a white swan in the snow. Easy enough, isn't it?
Better still, i can point a meter at any and all points in the scene.

You can still only guess how much light loss that slight haze up there will
cause. Not to mention the many variations of cloud cover.

True, you need to know a fair deal to be able to interpret correctly what a
lightmeter is telling you.

But that does make sunny-16 rule guessing more precise because...?

By the way: your not so good meter point is hard to oppose, save by saying
that it is not about the merits of metering vs syunny 16 rule, but all about
using meters that are not so good.
Same, of course, goes for the "bad battery" line of argumentation, etc. When
something's bad, it is bad. No contest. But that proofs what about another
thing???

And of course: incident metering has its limitations. But that doesn't mean
that it is bad. Not at all.
And even less that not metering at all (sunny 16) is better. Or even as
good. It simply isn't.
Arguments like that are pretty pointless. I can name many things that could
be better. But how would that make one thing that is not good a better
thing?
And so we come to your "lots of slop factors" argument... Yes, there are
many of those. The sunny-16 rule is one of them.
Now if it were no worse than any other thing, if it were no worse than
metering... But it is. It even loses on relative merit.

And again, yes, there are many slop factors. That does not make it good to
add another one, does it?

yes, I agree. You understood my major point, which is that there is a lot
of interpretation and experience which has to go into using various spot
meters, reflective and incident light meters in general, and aspects of
their use (such as situations like black cats in a coal bin for reflective
meters (even spot meters)) require experience to adjust readings in light
(pun intended) of these meter limitations.

This is as much a "best guesstimate" as my interpreting dark well defined
shadows vs. light shadows for the rule of sunny-16.

The nice thing about the rule of sunny-16 is that it costs us nothing, is
distributed free printed inside many film boxes, and serves as a useful
check on proper settings and function of our main metering device.

As for David's faith in spotmeters, having both an older analog and a
newer digital spotmeter, I am like the joke - a man with one watch always
knows the correct time, while a man with two watches is never really sure.
[i.e., he gets different answers from each watch]. It isn't unusual to
have multiple meters esp. of different types (selenium backup, SBC
luna pro, CdS etc.) give readings which don't precisely agree, right? ;-)

In such cases, I do best by going with whichever meter is closest to my
sunny-16 guesstimate ;-)

grins bobm
--
************************************************** *********************
* Robert Monaghan POB 752182 Southern Methodist Univ. Dallas Tx 75275 *
********************Standard Disclaimers Apply*************************

Q.G. de Bakker wrote:

Bob Monaghan wrote:


yes, viz.:
Aperture stops conditions
f/22 -1 stop snow or beach
f/16 sunny-16 bright daylight dark shadows
f/11 +1 stop weak or hazy sun sun low in sky
f/8 +2 stops cloudy bright
f/5.6 +3 stops darker clouds subject in shadow
f/4 +4 stops sunset


I can't help but love the precision in the "rule" expressed using the words
"beach", "dark", "shadow", "hazy", "cloudy", "darker", "bright"...
;-)

But remarkably, even for slide film, these rules are quite effective. I
personally use my in-camera spot or incident meter 98% of the time; but
I can usually look at a daylight scene and guess the setting pretty
closely from EV 16 (f/22) down to EV 12 (f/5.6) (for speed +/- 1/3 stops
from film EI). From there reciprocity gets the rest. Below EV 0 or -1,
the Fred Parker chart is all I need.

"Precision"? With so much variance in meters, meter geometry and film
sensitivities, meter precision is not as important as knowing your meter
and your film well.

As another poster mentioned, the Fred Parker 'meter' works quite well.
http://www.fredparker.com/ultexp1.htm
http://www.fredparker.com/ultexp1.ht...ensity%20Chart
http://www.fredparker.com/ultexp1.ht...%20CHA RT%20B

I keep a printed copy in my office and on some excursions bring it along.

Cheers,
Alan



--
--e-meil: there's no such thing as a FreeLunch.--