My father taught me me the sunny 16 rule in the early 1960s when he taught me 8mm & 16mm filmmaking when I was only 6 or 7 years old. Between his instruction and watching my grandmother using her Leica to shoot perfect slides - no meters back then, just intuition and knowledge - it became firmly imbedded in my brain. I find that now that I am in the position of teaching young film photographers the fundamentals of exposure, the joy and excitement they exhibit once they find out how simple it can be is fantastic to see. I’ll use a meter or metering app on my phone simply to check to see if my choices are correct. I have yet to miss the correct exposure by even 1 stop. Thanks dad!
Also there weren't little kids around with SLRs. It required knowledge of photography back then and today you can put everything in auto and call yourself a photographer. It is very nice to know these kind of tips, I use Sunny 16 all the time since it gives such constant results 👍
I just started doing film photography and learned about the sunny 16 rule. Immediately I asked myself if this can work on digital photography. I found your video and you answered my question. Will definitely be using this a lot.
I used my Yashica Mats in the 1960s using Trix at 250th using the sunny 16 rule when I was a Press and wedding photographer. Indoors I used a Metz flashgun bounced back into the corner of the room. The latitude of negative film towards overexposure is phenomenal. I used colour slide film for magazine covers and always used a meter.
This is the most clear exposure video i've seen. I was working arround my settings like a maniac to find out now that it is so simple. Thanks for the explanation!
This is really good mate. I find messing around with 1/3 stops and 1000+ settings sends my OCD into overdrive and I spend more time focusing on my settings when shooting digital than I do what’s going on around me. When i shoot film I use the Sunny 16 rule as much as I can and I enjoy it so much more because it seems a much more straight forward approach. I usually find as if by magic, my film photos always seem to be better. Who’d of thought eh? When it comes to digital I find myself mainly using Aperture Priority which in most cases seems to do the trick.
Thanks George! I thoroughly recommend just treating you digital like film. (Except for overexposure!) Maybe even tape off the screen! Sunny 16 won't let you down
Thank you. Yours is one of the few videos that explains you are not stuck with f16, that it is only a base and you can interpolate from there to use the f stop or shutter speed you want. I also like Sunny 16 better than a reflected light meter reading which can be thrown off by the color or reflectivity of the subject you point it at. Sunny 16 works more like an incident reading....it is based on the light no matter what subject color you are pointing at with the camera or meter. Many like to slightly over expose color negative film and use the "Sunny 11" rule instead to get that extra stop of over exposure.
What an amazing video, i wish you could have been my school teacher 30 years ago. How you made it all make sense and how all the other 25 videos about this topic that I just watched simply couldn't get me there while leaving me feeling hopeless and sending me down horrible memories of failed math classes, this is mind blowing. Now I just need to understand how the ISO play the part... Luckily I just bought a film camera. Although my genuine interest in photography combined with a low self-esteem and peter pan syndrome has made me pick up everything from point n shoots to digitals without even learning the fuckers. Now I cant wait! Pentax K1000 street session tomorrow, I'm going to see if the light meter works now that i know what it should be doing ;P. Thank you I'll sub!
Even as late as the 1980's Kodak printed a very detailed Exposure Graph inside of every one of their yellow film boxes! I used to consult that graph anytime my batteries had died or the meter was suspect.
I used to shoot my camera every day. I reached a point where I could just look at the scene set my settings and blam 0 to 1/3 stops off. I also learn that the shade is like 3 stops less. Crazy stuff man cuz to my eyes it looks like 1 to 1-1/2. I just realized you mentioned the shade trick. This is totally not awkward.
Sunny 16 does always work. Photographers new to analog need to keep in mind that certain 'looks' achieved through over or under exposing are a completely different topic. Sunny 16 gives you a good exposure so that you aren't completely lost.
Thank you for making this video. I was looking for some creative shot inspiration using the sunny 16 rule, and your video came up. I appreciate the thought process of the rule being explained. I'd heard the rule, but never really took time to think about it.
Nice video! I live in Oregon where we have similar lighting challenges, and I have adopted the “Sunny 11” approach as well. It’s all about being aware of your surroundings, I’m thinking! 😁
Hello, great video! Personnally I just look at the shadows, it is much more precise : Shadow Full sun - sharp shadow: f / 16 Veiled sun - diffuse shadow: -1 stop => f / 11 Against the light or in the shade (clear shade): -3 stops => f / 5.6 Sun above the horizon, before diving: about -4 stops or about f / 4 No shade Hidden sun, white sky, visible sun disk with sunglasses: -2 stops => f / 8 Overcast sky, light gray, invisible sun disk: -3 stops => f / 5.6 Overcast, leaden gray, it can rain: -4 stops => f / 4 Rain: from -4 to -5 stops or f / 4 to f / 2.8 Interior From -9 to -10 stops Dim lights: between -12 and -15 stops I use this and I have great result, hope it helps.
Well, it'll be lower than f1.0. So essentially you're forced to then slow the shutter or raise ISO to compensate. If your lens went down to 2.8 for example, you'd then need to slow the shutter or -4 stops or raise ISO 4 stops, or a combination of each.
Hey, nice video! Explains it very clearly. I'm new to photography and still finding things out. In the video you mention that you can only play around with one setting on film camera's, the shutter speed, if you want to change your aperture. However, in other videos I've seen that it's possible tonplay around with your ISO settings as well. Example, if you have a 400 ISO film inside your camera, you can set the camera to 200 ISO in order to overexpose by one stop. Is that correct? Thanks for explaining! I hope to nail it by next year. Cheers
Hi! Thank you! Yeah, you are correct. On negative film, you often have wiggle room to overexpose quite a bit and on digital, you can often underexpose several stops - but on film, his doesn't strictly change the ISO. By setting a camera to 200 from 400, you're actually calibrating its meter so that it reads zero when you either reduce the shutter or open the aperture to balance of the ISO change. (Again, this is just on film. Digital will actually change the ISO.) If you're using a camera without a meter and use Sunny 16, you can just do that in your head. Pretend it's 200, instead of 400.
The tricky part is that most charts of the rule only go down a few stops. When you get deep in the woods of very early/late in the day it takes a great deal more skill. Perhaps a good exercise would be to go about with an incident meter in as many varying lighting conditions as possible to get a feel for the extremes. The reason I say incident is that it is measuring the actual lighting conditions independent of the tonality of the subject. No need to estimate what is medium gray.
So, digital on dslr or smart phone, this would help if your screen has broken and the meter in the camera has broken and you using a none 50mm lens then this may help but i would say the situation is even worse in that you prob need a new camera or phone
Thanks for the video. It can be quite tricky with reflective surfaces though (such as water, snow etc.). Maybe that's the case where you would use f16 in England, haha?
Thank man! You know what? Yeah! I was shooting into the sun the other day. I had railway tracks in the foreground. The rest of the scene said f8, but the reflection from the tracks said flat out f16. In short I decided the texture of the railway lines wasn't important 😅
So basically, we keep the Shutter keep constant (reciprocal of the ISO) while *solely* changing the F-stop according to the prevailing, correct? Thanks, JakPhoto.
That's one approach to take, yes. But you can shift from there. If you change shutter speed by +/-1 then you then shift your f-stop judgement by that, too.
As I’ve watched tons of videos on the sunny 16 rule…I enjoyed your video by far the best. Two random questions…1…is there somewhere your photos can be viewed? Website…instagram…etc. 2…what camera are you using in this particular video?
Guess I live in a f / 4 country, too 😊 and off course with b / w film, you have to factor in filters. Use of an orange or red filter definitely change the equation ..
So if I shoot on a 200 ISO film. Shutter speed 1/250 on f.16. I can only shoot with the lowest f stop of 8 because my camera only have 3 stops of shutter speed to my last 1/1000. What can i do if i want to take portrait in f.5.6, f.4 or f.2.8 then??
*Faster Cheat Code* Halve the previous reciprocal each time you gain a stop by shooting wider than the sunny-16 base aperture. So your sunny 16 aperture is a reciprocal of 1, If you shoot +1 stop wider the reciprocal becomes 1/2. At +2 stops it's 1/4th, +3 stops is 1/8th etc. If it's an f/16 day and I'm shooting at f/8 that's two stops so my reciprocal is 1/4th - my ISO should be 1/4th of my shutter speed. If my shutter is 1/2000ths I need ISO 500. If ISO is more important to you than shutter speed then just reverse it: Put another way, a 1/4th reciprocal means ISO * 4 = Shutter speed. Want to shoot at ISO 100? Then at f/8 on an f/16 day your shutter becomes 1/400ths. At +3 stops that's 1/8th, so an ISO of 100 needs 1/800ths shutter speed. *Note* Bright reflective subjects require you to add 1 to your base Aperture. Sunny 16 base aperture becomes f/22. This occurs when on sandy beaches, around lots of water, shooting in the snow, bright fields of very colorful flowers etc. Writing it out like this makes it seem awfully complicated but do it a time or two and it'll become second nature. Best part is... *It works*
I've got to be honest, you're right, it does seem awfully complicated written out like that. This seems to bring in extra equations where really, we just need to say: if you add one, you have to take one away, if you take one away, you need to add one, and so on.
@@jakphoto By reflectors, I mean aluminum foil covering sheets of cardboard. I am going to use reversal film. Ektachrome 100D. And being a high contrast filmstock I want to make sure all sides of my subject are lit as much as possible.
Yeah. Sunny 16 never doesn't work. With reflected light, you're looking at light less strong than the direct sun but brighter than shade, so on a fully sunny day, (f16) it'll probably be around 2 stops darker on the subject (I.e. f8) if you've positioned them in shade then bounce sun back. Or stuck to f16 if you position them in full sun and fill the shadows. (Or move settings from there as the video says.)
What if I shoot 400 iso film, and I want to set my aperature to 4. But my max shutter speed on my pentax k1000 camera is 1/1000 and I can’t move up anymore stop?
Well for one, this is exactly why manufacturers worked on higher shutters. Past 1/1000th, the increase in sharpness to the motion was negligible, at least on 35mm back in the day. So the increase really just helps that creative aperture choice. Alternatively, to combat this, you can use an ND filter. One with just a few stops darkening power and boom, you're back in the game! Video shooters will still reach for these because they really want to stick to a shutter that pairs with their framerate and base ISOs for video are actually higher than photo, so they run out of options even quicker.
For light metering there must be and of of course there is an algorithm which can be transformed into a simple linear equation for that only the definition of the overall EV (of the scene as a whole, the targeted motif) is necessary: EV = TV +AV at ISO 100 i.e. the sum of time value and aperture value. As f-stops deal with doubling the duallog (ln) values are relevant. For non matematicians and IT-people having learned or written down the assoiative values explained below this becomes very simple! For time value > 1 sec it is the dual log (ld) of the denominator e.g. 1/2sec=1, 1/4 sec =2, 1/8 =3, ...1/1000 (originally 1/1024) is 10. for t > 1 sec the ld of that time e.g. 1= 0, 2=1, 4 =2 etc. AV is a little more complicated as there is a quadradic relationship, but 1=0, 1.4=1, 2=2, 2.8=3, 4=4 etc. The fstops here are increased by the square root of 2 because of the quadradic relationship, but AV = (2*ld (aperture). For different ISO the time and/or aperture values must be adjusted.
I admire you mathematical skills! Personally, I failed Maths at school, so this is why I practice and advocate practical the practical reading of a scene with a simple 1-1-1 formula between settings. But for anyone clever enough, i'm sure this will explain a lot! Thanks!
I'm assuming you mean on camera? Thing is, different meters have different modes. Might be you use evaluative on your camera and spot on your phone, or visa-versa. That can result in different readings. If they're both set the same, they should read the same. Otherwise, there's a fault
Its great, but I would love to see you shoot for a few weeks only using the sunny 16 rule with NO cheating and NO chimping on screen in JPEG ONLY ( N O R A W FUCKING WHATSOEVER !) and then show the results. In fact, its such a good idea that I am going to try it out myself 😄
This rule was used in the days of film, nowadays all dslr's and mirrorless camera have decent built in lightmeters, so it doesn't really apply anymore. I've got enough experience to predict the settings I need btw
But that's just it, Johan! It does apply! With all the metering modes of modern cameras, you can make better judgements of which one is right to read a scene. Or if you're on mirrorless, you can tell if your exposure preview is in or off. And of course, this is exactly how a meter is calibrated to read the scene in the first place. But overall, you can judge what's right without the meter. Just like you say, you develop experience to predict the settings you need. Thanks for stopping by 👍
@@jakphoto I can even predict now if I'd need 10 or 30 seconds using an nd-filter :-). Something else : sometimes you need to deliberately over-or underexpose, the meter is not always right. And spotmetering often gives other results compared to matrix metering
I proved it to myself many times that sunny 16 rule is donkey doo ( with a crop sensor anyway ) . Put your camera in shutter priority 1/125 and your iso @ 100 then point the camera at various scenes knowing damn well that the light is f16 , f11 , f8 , f5.6 etc and you'll see that the fstops when finding the correct exposure are friggin miles out , sometimes by as many as 3 stops . I've always been told that the same applies for crop sensors but I don't believe anyone truly knows , the physics of a smaller lens should make it sunny 11. Full frame and crop sensors have a difference in fstops , so surely this should also change some things for the sunny 16 rule . An example is f8 on a micro 4/3 is equivalent to a f16 on a full frame .
This is all down to your metering. There are no exposure differences between sensor sizes or the lenses used with them. Calculating exposure is a consistent calculation. The only differences between sensor sizes are base noise performance and depth of field. That's where your f16 to f8 conversation comes in (which you put backwards. f16 on FF is f8 on MFT.) In fact, in this video, I'm using a crop sensor camera and demonstrate that I can accurately predict the exposures that it will choose using Sunny 16.
@@jakphoto Sorry for the mistake about the f numbers which I have now corrected , but can you tell me each time i point my camera at a scene set at ISO 100 and 1/125 in shutter priority on what is clearly a f16 day does my camera not arrive at f16 apeture but mostly far from it ? I will add that it's the same in all metering modes and three different crop sensor cameras . I know this is just an experiment to prove a point but it's niggling me .
Cameras meter scenes in fairly complex ways. A camera's Sunny 16 ideal is like the Windows XP desktop. Full sun lit with bright sky. The whole frame is fairly linear. Most scenes are far more complicated than that, in which case, a camera will adjust to find a balance according to average and centre weighted measurements over the whole frame. Spot meter is most accurate but you'll need to be sure of where you're pointing it. If you take spot metering and point it at something in broad sunlight, you'll likely get f16. Point it at slight shade in the same scene and even though the sun is glaring overhead, you'll see the camera chooses wider and wider apertures. So Sunny 16 in your head can often be more straightforward than a camera's automatic modes. And then, of course, any "exposure compensation" control will throw this all out.
Hi, welcome to RUclips. You might wish to familiarise yourself with just features as the TIMELINE where you can skip through any video to your heart's content. Or, if you're too lazy to try that out, you can just watch ANY other video until you find one that satisfies your goldfish like attention span.
My father taught me me the sunny 16 rule in the early 1960s when he taught me 8mm & 16mm filmmaking when I was only 6 or 7 years old. Between his instruction and watching my grandmother using her Leica to shoot perfect slides - no meters back then, just intuition and knowledge - it became firmly imbedded in my brain. I find that now that I am in the position of teaching young film photographers the fundamentals of exposure, the joy and excitement they exhibit once they find out how simple it can be is fantastic to see. I’ll use a meter or metering app on my phone simply to check to see if my choices are correct. I have yet to miss the correct exposure by even 1 stop. Thanks dad!
Also there weren't little kids around with SLRs. It required knowledge of photography back then and today you can put everything in auto and call yourself a photographer. It is very nice to know these kind of tips, I use Sunny 16 all the time since it gives such constant results 👍
Thank you, I finally got it! And appreciate your honesty when you say "the basics are always there".
I just started doing film photography and learned about the sunny 16 rule. Immediately I asked myself if this can work on digital photography. I found your video and you answered my question. Will definitely be using this a lot.
If you want to shoot a photo of the moon you can use the sunny 16. The light of the moon is the same as earth at 12noon.
I used my Yashica Mats in the 1960s using Trix at 250th using the sunny 16 rule when I was a Press and wedding photographer.
Indoors I used a Metz flashgun bounced back into the corner of the room. The latitude of negative film towards overexposure is phenomenal.
I used colour slide film for magazine covers and always used a meter.
This is the most clear exposure video i've seen. I was working arround my settings like a maniac to find out now that it is so simple. Thanks for the explanation!
Thank you! That's great to hear!
I had to leave a comment for this. This is exactly what I was looking for when I searched sunny 16. Thanks mate!
Good to hear it! Thank you!
Great explaination of Sunny 16 rule. Can't wait to try it in Vancouver which has a similar climate to the UK.
Ah! Love Vancouver! Have fun!
This is the exact explanation I was looking for. Thank you!
This is really good mate. I find messing around with 1/3 stops and 1000+ settings sends my OCD into overdrive and I spend more time focusing on my settings when shooting digital than I do what’s going on around me.
When i shoot film I use the Sunny 16 rule as much as I can and I enjoy it so much more because it seems a much more straight forward approach. I usually find as if by magic, my film photos always seem to be better. Who’d of thought eh?
When it comes to digital I find myself mainly using Aperture Priority which in most cases seems to do the trick.
Thanks George! I thoroughly recommend just treating you digital like film. (Except for overexposure!) Maybe even tape off the screen! Sunny 16 won't let you down
Thank you. Yours is one of the few videos that explains you are not stuck with f16, that it is only a base and you can interpolate from there to use the f stop or shutter speed you want. I also like Sunny 16 better than a reflected light meter reading which can be thrown off by the color or reflectivity of the subject you point it at. Sunny 16 works more like an incident reading....it is based on the light no matter what subject color you are pointing at with the camera or meter. Many like to slightly over expose color negative film and use the "Sunny 11" rule instead to get that extra stop of over exposure.
I shoot film a lot and use a darkroom but you’re right this is important for all photography, not just film
What an amazing video, i wish you could have been my school teacher 30 years ago. How you made it all make sense and how all the other 25 videos about this topic that I just watched simply couldn't get me there while leaving me feeling hopeless and sending me down horrible memories of failed math classes, this is mind blowing. Now I just need to understand how the ISO play the part... Luckily I just bought a film camera. Although my genuine interest in photography combined with a low self-esteem and peter pan syndrome has made me pick up everything from point n shoots to digitals without even learning the fuckers. Now I cant wait! Pentax K1000 street session tomorrow, I'm going to see if the light meter works now that i know what it should be doing ;P. Thank you I'll sub!
Even as late as the 1980's Kodak printed a very detailed Exposure Graph inside of every one of their yellow film boxes! I used to consult that graph anytime my batteries had died or the meter was suspect.
I used to shoot my camera every day. I reached a point where I could just look at the scene set my settings and blam 0 to 1/3 stops off. I also learn that the shade is like 3 stops less. Crazy stuff man cuz to my eyes it looks like 1 to 1-1/2. I just realized you mentioned the shade trick. This is totally not awkward.
I’ve seen all videos of the sunny 16 on film, your video is what I needed 💪🏾, as I shoot with dslr primarily
Great! Thanks for watching!
Sunny 16 does always work. Photographers new to analog need to keep in mind that certain 'looks' achieved through over or under exposing are a completely different topic. Sunny 16 gives you a good exposure so that you aren't completely lost.
Thank you for making this video. I was looking for some creative shot inspiration using the sunny 16 rule, and your video came up. I appreciate the thought process of the rule being explained. I'd heard the rule, but never really took time to think about it.
Nice video! I live in Oregon where we have similar lighting challenges, and I have adopted the “Sunny 11” approach as well. It’s all about being aware of your surroundings, I’m thinking! 😁
Just a great sunny 16 guideline, congrats , love it, very simple the way you explained it. Thanks
how about the looney 11 rule huh? thought that would confuse ya...
I learned something I need to start using this Thanks
3:30 “you say NAH, f4 mate” omg why did this make me laugh so much 😂
Haha! Well, I'm just glad you did. Thanks for watching '
Best Sunny 16 vid I've seen...and I've also concluded that we in uk need to work to Sunny 11 in summer, Sunny 8 on even bright winter days. Thx
Thank you! Haha, yeah, you're right. We're a whole stop behind!
Hello, great video!
Personnally I just look at the shadows, it is much more precise :
Shadow
Full sun - sharp shadow: f / 16
Veiled sun - diffuse shadow: -1 stop => f / 11
Against the light or in the shade (clear shade): -3 stops => f / 5.6
Sun above the horizon, before diving: about -4 stops or about f / 4
No shade
Hidden sun, white sky, visible sun disk with sunglasses: -2 stops => f / 8
Overcast sky, light gray, invisible sun disk: -3 stops => f / 5.6
Overcast, leaden gray, it can rain: -4 stops => f / 4
Rain: from -4 to -5 stops or f / 4 to f / 2.8
Interior
From -9 to -10 stops
Dim lights: between -12 and -15 stops
I use this and I have great result, hope it helps.
Good point! No idea why I forgot this in the video!
Great tips, thanks! Would like to know, in interiors, what f would - 9 stops under would be?
Well, it'll be lower than f1.0. So essentially you're forced to then slow the shutter or raise ISO to compensate. If your lens went down to 2.8 for example, you'd then need to slow the shutter or -4 stops or raise ISO 4 stops, or a combination of each.
Hey, nice video! Explains it very clearly.
I'm new to photography and still finding things out.
In the video you mention that you can only play around with one setting on film camera's, the shutter speed, if you want to change your aperture. However, in other videos I've seen that it's possible tonplay around with your ISO settings as well. Example, if you have a 400 ISO film inside your camera, you can set the camera to 200 ISO in order to overexpose by one stop. Is that correct?
Thanks for explaining! I hope to nail it by next year.
Cheers
Hi! Thank you! Yeah, you are correct. On negative film, you often have wiggle room to overexpose quite a bit and on digital, you can often underexpose several stops - but on film, his doesn't strictly change the ISO. By setting a camera to 200 from 400, you're actually calibrating its meter so that it reads zero when you either reduce the shutter or open the aperture to balance of the ISO change. (Again, this is just on film. Digital will actually change the ISO.) If you're using a camera without a meter and use Sunny 16, you can just do that in your head. Pretend it's 200, instead of 400.
3:30 Appreciate the laugh 😄 Thank you for this, trying to wrap my head around this stuff at the moment!
The tricky part is that most charts of the rule only go down a few stops. When you get deep in the woods of very early/late in the day it takes a great deal more skill.
Perhaps a good exercise would be to go about with an incident meter in as many varying lighting conditions as possible to get a feel for the extremes.
The reason I say incident is that it is measuring the actual lighting conditions independent of the tonality of the subject. No need to estimate what is medium gray.
Enjoyed this video, thank you! Hope all is well. Subscribed!
Thank you! I really appreciate it.
Great explaining the sunny 16 rule. Can you now explain sunny in England. No idea what that is.
I've been researching this and cannot find any logic, sorry! 🤣
So, digital on dslr or smart phone, this would help if your screen has broken and the meter in the camera has broken and you using a none 50mm lens then this may help but i would say the situation is even worse in that you prob need a new camera or phone
Thanks for the video. It can be quite tricky with reflective surfaces though (such as water, snow etc.). Maybe that's the case where you would use f16 in England, haha?
Thank man! You know what? Yeah! I was shooting into the sun the other day. I had railway tracks in the foreground. The rest of the scene said f8, but the reflection from the tracks said flat out f16. In short I decided the texture of the railway lines wasn't important 😅
So basically, we keep the Shutter keep constant (reciprocal of the ISO) while *solely* changing the F-stop according to the prevailing, correct? Thanks, JakPhoto.
That's one approach to take, yes. But you can shift from there. If you change shutter speed by +/-1 then you then shift your f-stop judgement by that, too.
Clear as Daylight, thanks
What a great video omg!! Subscribed!
As I’ve watched tons of videos on the sunny 16 rule…I enjoyed your video by far the best. Two random questions…1…is there somewhere your photos can be viewed? Website…instagram…etc. 2…what camera are you using in this particular video?
Hey Jason, thank you! Yes, I'm @josephallenkeys @jakweddingphoto and josephallenkeys.com
The camera I use to demonstrate is a Fuji x100f.
Guess I live in a f / 4 country, too 😊 and off course with b / w film, you have to factor in filters. Use of an orange or red filter definitely change the equation ..
So if I shoot on a 200 ISO film. Shutter speed 1/250 on f.16. I can only shoot with the lowest f stop of 8 because my camera only have 3 stops of shutter speed to my last 1/1000. What can i do if i want to take portrait in f.5.6, f.4 or f.2.8 then??
ND filters 👍😎 or, more practically, you move into some shade
@@jakphoto Thank you very much, that makes sense!👌🏽
*Faster Cheat Code* Halve the previous reciprocal each time you gain a stop by shooting wider than the sunny-16 base aperture. So your sunny 16 aperture is a reciprocal of 1, If you shoot +1 stop wider the reciprocal becomes 1/2. At +2 stops it's 1/4th, +3 stops is 1/8th etc. If it's an f/16 day and I'm shooting at f/8 that's two stops so my reciprocal is 1/4th - my ISO should be 1/4th of my shutter speed. If my shutter is 1/2000ths I need ISO 500. If ISO is more important to you than shutter speed then just reverse it: Put another way, a 1/4th reciprocal means ISO * 4 = Shutter speed. Want to shoot at ISO 100? Then at f/8 on an f/16 day your shutter becomes 1/400ths. At +3 stops that's 1/8th, so an ISO of 100 needs 1/800ths shutter speed. *Note* Bright reflective subjects require you to add 1 to your base Aperture. Sunny 16 base aperture becomes f/22. This occurs when on sandy beaches, around lots of water, shooting in the snow, bright fields of very colorful flowers etc. Writing it out like this makes it seem awfully complicated but do it a time or two and it'll become second nature. Best part is... *It works*
I've got to be honest, you're right, it does seem awfully complicated written out like that. This seems to bring in extra equations where really, we just need to say: if you add one, you have to take one away, if you take one away, you need to add one, and so on.
Does the sunny 16 rule still apply if you use reflectors?
Yep
@@jakphoto By reflectors, I mean aluminum foil covering sheets of cardboard. I am going to use reversal film. Ektachrome 100D. And being a high contrast filmstock I want to make sure all sides of my subject are lit as much as possible.
Yeah. Sunny 16 never doesn't work. With reflected light, you're looking at light less strong than the direct sun but brighter than shade, so on a fully sunny day, (f16) it'll probably be around 2 stops darker on the subject (I.e. f8) if you've positioned them in shade then bounce sun back. Or stuck to f16 if you position them in full sun and fill the shadows. (Or move settings from there as the video says.)
Mate, this is best Sunny 16 experience I had in my life! Love, use it!
Hey, thanks man!
Nice video
What if I shoot 400 iso film, and I want to set my aperature to 4. But my max shutter speed on my pentax k1000 camera is 1/1000 and I can’t move up anymore stop?
Well for one, this is exactly why manufacturers worked on higher shutters. Past 1/1000th, the increase in sharpness to the motion was negligible, at least on 35mm back in the day. So the increase really just helps that creative aperture choice. Alternatively, to combat this, you can use an ND filter. One with just a few stops darkening power and boom, you're back in the game! Video shooters will still reach for these because they really want to stick to a shutter that pairs with their framerate and base ISOs for video are actually higher than photo, so they run out of options even quicker.
That depends on how you develop also
Great tutorial! Thanks
For light metering there must be and of of course there is an algorithm which can be transformed into a simple linear equation for that only the definition of the overall EV (of the scene as a whole, the targeted motif) is necessary:
EV = TV +AV at ISO 100 i.e. the sum of time value and aperture value. As f-stops deal with doubling the duallog (ln) values are relevant.
For non matematicians and IT-people having learned or written down the assoiative values explained below this becomes very simple!
For time value > 1 sec it is the dual log (ld) of the denominator e.g. 1/2sec=1, 1/4 sec =2, 1/8 =3, ...1/1000 (originally 1/1024) is 10.
for t > 1 sec the ld of that time e.g. 1= 0, 2=1, 4 =2 etc.
AV is a little more complicated as there is a quadradic relationship, but 1=0, 1.4=1, 2=2, 2.8=3, 4=4 etc. The fstops here are increased by the square root of 2 because of the quadradic relationship, but AV = (2*ld (aperture).
For different ISO the time and/or aperture values must be adjusted.
I admire you mathematical skills! Personally, I failed Maths at school, so this is why I practice and advocate practical the practical reading of a scene with a simple 1-1-1 formula between settings.
But for anyone clever enough, i'm sure this will explain a lot! Thanks!
This is an amazing video very funny an knowable thanks mate :>
Brilliant informative video!! Honestly you deserve more credit mate
Thank you! I'm glad it can be helpful. Happy shooting!
When inuse the light meter app and compair IT with the light meter from my phone Both are different.
I'm assuming you mean on camera? Thing is, different meters have different modes. Might be you use evaluative on your camera and spot on your phone, or visa-versa. That can result in different readings. If they're both set the same, they should read the same. Otherwise, there's a fault
I use Sunny 16 with my Nikon digital SLR.
Congratz on making it to a garden.
great video !
In england f 16 equals f 11😄 not surprised
Its great, but I would love to see you shoot for a few weeks only using the sunny 16 rule with NO cheating and NO chimping on screen in JPEG ONLY ( N O R A W FUCKING WHATSOEVER !) and then show the results. In fact, its such a good idea that I am going to try it out myself 😄
This rule was used in the days of film, nowadays all dslr's and mirrorless camera have decent built in lightmeters, so it doesn't really apply anymore. I've got enough experience to predict the settings I need btw
But that's just it, Johan! It does apply! With all the metering modes of modern cameras, you can make better judgements of which one is right to read a scene. Or if you're on mirrorless, you can tell if your exposure preview is in or off. And of course, this is exactly how a meter is calibrated to read the scene in the first place. But overall, you can judge what's right without the meter. Just like you say, you develop experience to predict the settings you need. Thanks for stopping by 👍
@@jakphoto I can even predict now if I'd need 10 or 30 seconds using an nd-filter :-). Something else : sometimes you need to deliberately over-or underexpose, the meter is not always right. And spotmetering often gives other results compared to matrix metering
You are very clever dickie.
Haha! Thanks Steve!
I proved it to myself many times that sunny 16 rule is donkey doo ( with a crop sensor anyway ) . Put your camera in shutter priority 1/125 and your iso @ 100 then point the camera at various scenes knowing damn well that the light is f16 , f11 , f8 , f5.6 etc and you'll see that the fstops when finding the correct exposure are friggin miles out , sometimes by as many as 3 stops .
I've always been told that the same applies for crop sensors but I don't believe anyone truly knows , the physics of a smaller lens should make it sunny 11.
Full frame and crop sensors have a difference in fstops , so surely this should also change some things for the sunny 16 rule .
An example is f8 on a micro 4/3 is equivalent to a f16 on a full frame .
This is all down to your metering. There are no exposure differences between sensor sizes or the lenses used with them. Calculating exposure is a consistent calculation. The only differences between sensor sizes are base noise performance and depth of field. That's where your f16 to f8 conversation comes in (which you put backwards. f16 on FF is f8 on MFT.)
In fact, in this video, I'm using a crop sensor camera and demonstrate that I can accurately predict the exposures that it will choose using Sunny 16.
@@jakphoto Sorry for the mistake about the f numbers which I have now corrected , but can you tell me each time i point my camera at a scene set at ISO 100 and 1/125 in shutter priority on what is clearly a f16 day does my camera not arrive at f16 apeture but mostly far from it ? I will add that it's the same in all metering modes and three different crop sensor cameras . I know this is just an experiment to prove a point but it's niggling me .
Cameras meter scenes in fairly complex ways. A camera's Sunny 16 ideal is like the Windows XP desktop. Full sun lit with bright sky. The whole frame is fairly linear. Most scenes are far more complicated than that, in which case, a camera will adjust to find a balance according to average and centre weighted measurements over the whole frame.
Spot meter is most accurate but you'll need to be sure of where you're pointing it. If you take spot metering and point it at something in broad sunlight, you'll likely get f16. Point it at slight shade in the same scene and even though the sun is glaring overhead, you'll see the camera chooses wider and wider apertures.
So Sunny 16 in your head can often be more straightforward than a camera's automatic modes. And then, of course, any "exposure compensation" control will throw this all out.
@@jakphoto Thank's 👍
You lost me in the first 10 seconds,,,just get into it already!!!
Hi, welcome to RUclips. You might wish to familiarise yourself with just features as the TIMELINE where you can skip through any video to your heart's content. Or, if you're too lazy to try that out, you can just watch ANY other video until you find one that satisfies your goldfish like attention span.