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Rule of f16



 
 
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  #71  
Old May 22nd 04, 01:59 PM
RolandRB
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Default metering a best "guess"? ;-) Rule of f16

"David J. Littleboy" wrote in message ...
"Michael Scarpitti" wrote:
"David J. Littleboy" wrote:

Sheesh. This all started because I noticed that sunny 16 gave the wrong
answer enough of the time that it's unacceptable.


F/11 is closer in my experience....


Yup. Earlier in this thread I wrote f/8, but I think I was mis-remembering.

Anyway, even if sunny 16 were correct, it'd still be wrong because (at least
for the stuff I do) I want to reproduce the apparent effect of the scene on
the viewer, not to produce the equivalent of a studio catalog shot of the
subject. That means I need to place the subject on the zone that best
renders the appearance, not the subject's reflectivity.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan


If you shoot slide film using the f16 rule then on a sunny day your
shadows will be near black and you'll get no good detail from it. If
what you are interested in is part in shadow and you want to see
details from the shaded part then you open up a stop. If what you are
interested in is largely in shadow then you open up two stops and
don't worry about the bright areas being bleached. This is slide film
I am talking about here. As others have rightly pointed out then for
print film the photo lab can rescue your shot and give you a good
print if you have underexposed.
  #72  
Old May 23rd 04, 06:58 PM
Hemi4268
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Default metering a best "guess"? ;-) Rule of f16

Well, no. Not "as much".
The "rule" keeps you guessing about two things: the actual illumination, and
how to deal with that vis-a-vis de particulars of the subject.


But the guess in any type of daylight anywhere in the world will be from 12,000
ft candles to 2,500 foot candles. Anything else and you might want to take
cover. It means a "H" bomb just went off ot a tornado is on it's way.

Larry
  #73  
Old May 24th 04, 06:12 AM
Bob Monaghan
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Default metering a best "guess"? ;-) Rule of f16


plus your guesses should keep getting better ;-) I noted that full
daylight in Texas is a bit brighter than in Connecticut when I moved here.
Connecticut in the summer is less bright than the "paper film meter" in
the boxes would have you believe (cf. f/11 vs. f/16 per some posters
here?)

I was also off in some of my guesses until I learned to look closely at
the sky and see if there was any noticeable haze. If so, drop 1/2 stop.
Let's hope the haze is also blocking half the UV too ;-)

And we haven't even begun to get into "memory" effects with CdS meters vs
instant reading SBC cells etc. ;-) What do you do when the meter is
changing its reading of the exact same scene in steady bright daylight?
;-)

grins bobm


--
************************************************** *********************
* Robert Monaghan POB 752182 Southern Methodist Univ. Dallas Tx 75275 *
********************Standard Disclaimers Apply*************************
  #74  
Old May 26th 04, 05:54 AM
David J. Littleboy
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Default metering a best "guess"? ;-) Rule of f16


"Bob Monaghan" wrote in message
...

plus your guesses should keep getting better ;-) I noted that full
daylight in Texas is a bit brighter than in Connecticut when I moved here.
Connecticut in the summer is less bright than the "paper film meter" in
the boxes would have you believe (cf. f/11 vs. f/16 per some posters
here?)

I was also off in some of my guesses until I learned to look closely at
the sky and see if there was any noticeable haze. If so, drop 1/2 stop.
Let's hope the haze is also blocking half the UV too ;-)


Meanwhile, all your wrong guess frames were exposed incorrectly. That's a
lot of effort wasted.

Besides, slide film has minimal latitude, so guessing really doesn't work if
you care how your subjects are rendered.

If you test your film by bracketing against a few common subjects, you can
learn how rendition changes with exposure. At which point a spot meter gives
extremely fine control over rendition. (Presumably similar games are
possible with incident meters, although I don't know how to do that.) Far
better than guessing.

And we haven't even begun to get into "memory" effects with CdS meters vs
instant reading SBC cells etc. ;-) What do you do when the meter is
changing its reading of the exact same scene in steady bright daylight?


If you insist on either using bad tools or not learning how to use your
tools correctly, that's not the tools' fault.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan


  #75  
Old May 26th 04, 08:12 PM
Q.G. de Bakker
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Default OT flaky batteries metering a best "guess"? ;-)

Bob Monaghan wrote:

I am simply saying that faulting the rule of sunny-16 because it involves
a "guess" is not fair. There are lots of issues with properly using meters
that require us to interpret the scene or our meter reading, angles of
coverage, etc.


The difference still is that the rule makes you guess about how to apply the
results of a previous guess, while metering only makes you guess about how
to apply a metered result. Two guesses against one.
I'd say it's perfectly fair to fault the "rule" on that grounds. This "you
have to interpret the scene anyway" line really is something of a red
herring.



  #76  
Old May 27th 04, 04:10 AM
Bob Monaghan
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Default OT flaky batteries metering a best "guess"? ;-)


well, you are "measuring" the light, just with your eyes, which turn out
to be rather good at such estimates with practice ;-) With a meter, you
are also measuring the light, but with a sensor and meter combo. Both
sensors (eye and CdS/SBC..) can be fooled in certain situations, such as
very cold weather (battery current capacity drops..) and hazy high clouds
(the eye ;-).

a large number of photos have not been taken with meter readings, but with
simpler cameras without such electronic sensors, and with considerable
success from the simple directions in the printed film box settings guides

And lots of MF cameras don't have meters, letting you pick whether to use
one or not, and which kind of meter compromises to make if you do pick one
;-)

grins bobm
--
************************************************** *********************
* Robert Monaghan POB 752182 Southern Methodist Univ. Dallas Tx 75275 *
********************Standard Disclaimers Apply*************************
  #77  
Old May 28th 04, 09:29 AM
Q.G. de Bakker
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Default OT flaky batteries metering a best "guess"? ;-)

Bob Monaghan wrote:

well, you are "measuring" the light, just with your eyes, which turn out
to be rather good at such estimates with practice ;-)


That's just silly... ;-)

With a meter, you
are also measuring the light, but with a sensor and meter combo. Both
sensors (eye and CdS/SBC..) can be fooled in certain situations, such as
very cold weather (battery current capacity drops..) and hazy high clouds
(the eye ;-).


Sure. Nothing is infallible.
Which goes to show what? That our adapting eyes and ditto cerebral processor
are better metering instruments than those silicon thingies?
I think not, sir! ;-)

a large number of photos have not been taken with meter readings, but with
simpler cameras without such electronic sensors, and with considerable
success from the simple directions in the printed film box settings guides


Indeed. And many perhaps many people do employ the 16-rule too.
But that is not what is in dispute here. The thing is whether or not the
rule/written instructions are nearly as good as using a meter. Right?
Whether that "considerable" is to be interpreted as expression of surprise
"given the fact that all they do is guess, the results turned out not too
bad." and low expectation "given the [etc.], we mustn't complain", or indeed
as "anywhere near what they should have been". I'm sure it's the first.

And lots of MF cameras don't have meters, letting you pick whether to use
one or not, and which kind of meter compromises to make if you do pick one


Some cameras do indeed not have a meter. Again, that's another matter
entirely, without bearing on matter in hand.


  #78  
Old May 31st 04, 05:45 AM
Bob Monaghan
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Default cameras w/o meters? metering a best "guess"? ;-)


quoting QGdeB ;-)
Some cameras do indeed not have a meter. Again, that's another matter
entirely, without bearing on matter in hand.
end-quote

If meters were mandatory to get good results, and guessing per sunny-16
was not close enough most of the time to satisfy many users, then wouldn't
all cameras have some sort of meter in order to get satisfactory results?

the majority of cameras made being cheapy consumer models, many of which
have only three icons for "bright sun", "cloudy", and "indoors-flash" for
the camera speed settings, right? ;-)

Actually, things are going the other way. Many films now have such wide
latitudes that you can get good images out of the automatic lab printing
machines with terrible exposures ;-) I'm still using some Fuji slide film
that can be processed at ISO 100 to ISO 1,000, as the need may be ;-)

My basic argument is that many of us can probably judge sunny-16
situations within a half stop with some experience. Most meters of various
types (CdS, selenium, SBC..) will often disagree by 1/3rd to 1/2 stop or
even more, depending on the lighting type and angle meter is held and so
on. It can be disconcerting when your various meters (incident/reflected
SBC cell handheld, one degree spotmeter on an "average 18% gray" subject,
and in camera reflected CdS meter all disagree on the exposure setting ;-)

grins bobm
--
************************************************** *********************
* Robert Monaghan POB 752182 Southern Methodist Univ. Dallas Tx 75275 *
********************Standard Disclaimers Apply*************************
  #79  
Old June 2nd 04, 08:13 PM
Q.G. de Bakker
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Default cameras w/o meters? metering a best "guess"? ;-)

Bob Monaghan wrote:

quoting QGdeB ;-)
Some cameras do indeed not have a meter. Again, that's another matter
entirely, without bearing on matter in hand.
end-quote

If meters were mandatory to get good results, and guessing per sunny-16
was not close enough most of the time to satisfy many users, then wouldn't
all cameras have some sort of meter in order to get satisfactory results?


No. That's another rather specious argument.
Try this one for size: since not every meter is attached to, or even built
into a camera, a camera obviously is not needed to get good results.
If required i'm sure some wise people can come up with a "rule of thumb",
later to be promoted to "rule" sec, to make up for
the-thing-we-can't-put-our-fingers-on-but-is-so-obviously-responsible-for-ou
r-"results"-not-being-what-they-were-hoped-for.

As long as there are handheld meters, why would every camera need to have a
meter built-in to proof that meters are mandatory to get good results?

Just doesn't hold, your way of reasoning.
;-)

the majority of cameras made being cheapy consumer models, many of which
have only three icons for "bright sun", "cloudy", and "indoors-flash" for
the camera speed settings, right? ;-)


Right.
So many, many exposures failed to produce anything near what should have
been.
Right?

[...]
My basic argument is that many of us can probably judge sunny-16
situations within a half stop with some experience. [...]


That's what you'd have us believe, yes.
You don't do so yourself. Why else would you put forward a "film is so
lenient it will forgive all our mistakes" defence? What mistakes would that
be if indeed we were good at guessing?
;-)



 




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