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#71
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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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