Meterless Sunny 16 and full stops- a dumb question...

[Roger Hicks]

Roger's advice in interesting. I'll have to give it a try, but in the mean time, I use sunny 16 even with my M6 even though it has a meter. On a sunny day I shoot 1/ISO f/16. Film 200ISO, SS is 1/250/ 400ISO SS 1/500. Never noticed underexposed negatives.

You shouldn't, at 1/3 stop under in clear bright sun. But in anything less than perfect conditions, I'd be surprised if an extra 1/3 or 2/3 stop didn't give you more pleasing exposures with neg film.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I do most of my shooting without a meter (C-41, E6, B&W)and judge exposure using Sunny 16 as a guide.
I have found that for most outdoor shooting (in my area) Sunny 11 tends to work better. For ISO 400 film, I use 1/500 and f/11. With ISO 100, I use f/11 and 1/125.
Depending on the film I'm using, I might choose f/16 instead of f/11 if I want more contrast and saturation.

Yep. As noted in the link.

Cheers,

R.

 

[popavvakum]

Film tolerance

Film tolerance

My modest understanding is that a modern colour negative film happily accepts at least 2 f-stops of over- or under-exposure with only tiny loss of details in shadows or bleaching of colours. This largerly covers 2/3 of an EV plus difference in lens f-stop graduation plus inaccuracy of shutter.

So, you may get lovely vibrant colours in a picture metered by your eye and the back of your clenched fist if only you do not clinch it too tight....

 

[sr1200]

Thanks to all. I didn't mean to get anyone in fits, just learning here. Film is very new to me.


One of you mentioned air pollution...

As I often shoot in Seoul, and Seoul has some of the worst air (outside of China) in the world, it's a topic I've thought about myself. Our "haze" tends to be high altitude fine dust, so the sky is white (Roger's link calls it "Tupperware" which is a fitting moniker). Any of you shoot much in this? I'm trying to get used to that one... went to an orange filter just to try to bring some sky out...

 

[David Hughes]

And the intensity of the sunlight varies from month to month. The old BS 935 tables showed this very clearly. Anyway, there's a lot of latitude when exposing, developing and printing. Look on the DX for the film's latitude, although why they bother escapes me as few cameras read all 12 points and what would the camera do with the info?

Regards, David

 

[JHutchins]

I want to repeat in a different way what's quoted below. The thing about exposure is, it's not a wholly technical question, it calls on artistic judgment. The only way to talk about a "right exposure" that makes sense to me is if you think of it in information theory terms. If it is possible to capture all the information available before you then the "right exposure" is the exposure (or possibly range of exposures) that does that. But every scene has its dynamic range and usually that dynamic range will be greater than what your image capturing system is capable of recording. So you are throwing away information either in the highlights or shadows and the "right exposure" is the one that preserves the information you care most about -- which is an artistic, not a technical judgment. So when you expose think about the scene you're capturing and how flat or contrasty it is, and how interested you are in the shadows of what you're seeing and how interested you are in the highlights and adjust accordingly.

If you are not doing copy work, you will almost never encounter a situation where each part of the scenery receives the same illumination down to one stop, much less one third. Pretty much every exposure of a three-dimensional subject is subject to a interpretation as to what part should be properly exposed. Where 1/3 stop accuracy won't matter - even professionally consistent interpretation will rarely nail a subject that accurately. People giving samples of their exposure problems in the forums usually are upward of two EV off the mark...

 

[sr1200]

Good observation, JHutchins. I erred a bit too far with this when I first started film, not understanding how little latitude there was for underexposure. (My intent was for darker images, but I did not execute properly) Every roll I seem to learn more.

 

[johnnyrod]

Re. the accuracy of aperture - I have a couple of service sheets for Pentax SLR lenses. The newer one has a tighter tolerance on the acceptable range of apertures to call f4 and f16, which works out as 3.6-4.4 (a factor of 1.5x in terms of light coming in). The older one works out at 3.3-4.7 which is a factor of 2x i.e. a whole stop difference between lenses is possible. The same is true at f16 on the sheets. This is also based on the stroke of the lever which closes the aperture on an open-metered SLR - one to the purists with stop-down metering, where the assumption of aperture is taken away on both points. I daresay the service guys aim for the optimum but they are allowed a deal of leeway before it would be called wrong.

I've underexposed too many pictures so learned the hard way to use a meter but not fret too much. Worth remembering if you have a camera prone to stray light, for example my old 1960s rangefinders with non-TTL meters tend to pick up some sky light as well as the subject, plus "spot" metering even if you have it isn't that tight.

 

[Vics]

ISO400 and ISO500 are 1/3 of a stop apart. So shoot it at a 500th and f11 and two thirds.

 

[tunalegs]

If you're using a meter, you're still going to be setting things to full or half stops anyway, so it's rather silly to be fretting over it when not using a meter.

If you're shooting 400 ASA, set the shutter to 1/500, and set the the f stop to f/16. Or set it to the half stop between f/16 and f/11 if you're really obsessive.

 

[ChrisLivsey]

Re. the accuracy of aperture - I have a couple of service sheets for Pentax SLR lenses. The newer one has a tighter tolerance on the acceptable range of apertures to call f4 and f16, which works out as 3.6-4.4 (a factor of 1.5x in terms of light coming in). The older one works out at 3.3-4.7 which is a factor of 2x i.e. a whole stop difference between lenses is possible.

Thanks for that post, I still can't put my finger on my reference but the conclusion was much the same plus the variance of repeatability on the same lens, not a whole stop.
For those who perhaps think this is only older lenses a recent blog post here comparing two copies of the modern legend Coastal Optics 60mm f4 where indicated f11 was f8 with the variability between copies as well.
The author is well respected for the thoroughness of his methods.
http://blog.kasson.com/?p=15103

 

[Godfrey]

Here's what you do:

1. Go to Ebay and find yourself a copy of the Kodak Pocket Photo Guide.
2. Put it in your pocket; use it for every photograph.
3. Shoot a few rolls of film in varying light conditions.
4. Take notes as you shoot.
5. As soon after every roll of film as you can, process the film and examine the negatives carefully.

The Kodak Pocket Photo Guide contains calculators for exposure based on scene type. There are standard light calculators, available light (darkness) calculators, close up exposure calculators, etc. The calculators have a description of the scene type and give you a few choices of shutter speed and lens opening to match them. Pick the ones that are closest to what your camera has to offer. When you finish and develop the roll, be sure to note which are the successful exposures, what the scene was, and what settings you used.

After a few rolls of film, if you do this, you'll have the exposure settings for most scene types in your memory and won't need to bother taking out the guide or writing down the exposures. Keep the Kodak Pocket Photo Guide in your bag for easy reference in case you are unsure or encounter a new situation.

I started photography with an early Argus C3 and a 1949 Rolleiflex Autocord, both loaned to me. I didn't have an accurate exposure meter for years—all the ones I had access to were old and mostly inaccurate. I used the recommendations in the film box for exposure. Later, I bought a Kodak Pocket Photo Guide because it had more than the exposure sheets with the films and cost me $3 (a lot of money when I was 13, but much less than an exposure meter).

Because of the analog calculators and the "scene description to exposure" mapping in the Photo Guide, to this day I can generally set the correct exposure just by looking at a scene and setting the numbers on the camera. I don't know how I remember all the combinations, I can't recall them consciously, but I can always look at a scene and know about what to set the camera to.

Give it a shot and forget debating Sunny 16 vs Sunny 11. ;-)

G

Ok, pardon my dumb question folks, I'm trying to ween myself off a meter here..

Sunny 16...

Say I'm shooting ISO 400 film. Aperture set at f/16 and it's full light out side.

You say shutter 1/400.

I say my film cameras are in full shutter speed stops, so it goes 1/250 then 1/500.

How does this work? I can't select 1/400. If I select 1/250, I'm basically 2/3 stop overexposed. if I select 1/500 I'm basically a 1/4 under exposed. Which is best?

 

[farlymac]

I use so many different cameras that fretting over shutter speed accuracy is useless. I did however tell the lab to quite correcting my scans so I can tell when either I or the camera were accurate enough. I've got some decent meters, but hauling them around sometimes is logistically tiring, and may cause me to miss a shot, so I limit their use to when I can't decide which way to go on a setting. Film latitude helps also, but you still don't want to blow out the highlights. There are times I want to darken the shadows, or just the opposite, so I expose for the area of the scene I am most interested in showing detail.

If you really want to see how complex the Sunny-16 method can be, look at the back of a Universal Camera Company Mercury II, and try to make heads or tails out of that calculator. Takes a bit of practice, but you will better understand the properties of natural light.

PF

 

[Richard G]

Can't go past Roger's advice on exposure.

With respect to adjustments of sunny 16 for particular circumstances, it is interesting that even the fixed exposure guide on the back of my Rolleiflex gives x2 factors for after 3pm and for certain months of the year (August to April as I remember). Down here in Australia it's a bit different to northern Europe. Your mileage WILL vary.

 

[johnnyrod]

Here's a question: say your shooting at ISO200 in classically f16 conditions, and let's say you have a shutter speed of 1/200, as well as 1/100, 1/50, 1/25 (old school). If you want to overexpose by a stop or two, would you rather open the aperture or slow the shutter? let's talk about something fixed i.e. no motion blur/camera shake.

 

[Peter Jennings]

I would assume, all things being fixed, that it wouldn't matter which you chose. Of course, changing aperture would affect depth of field, so if maintaining that was important you would choose to change shutter speed. But by changing aperture you can gain a little more control over exposure because the aperture is infinitely adjustable - you can set it between the click stops. But I hardly ever try to get that precise, myself.

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

Thanks, Roger, for all the accumulated wisdom.