A hypothetical scenario - you choose the camera settings.
In this scenario we hand you a camera and you have control of two settings. One setting being the aperture size adjustment, and the other being the shutter speed adjustment. You can adjust these to any reasonable setting. The camera is preloaded with black and white film rated at ISO 100. For this scenario we will assume the film speed ISO rating is accurate. You have no other tools at your disposal, (ie; no light meter). You are given the opportunity to take one shot and your reputation depends this single negative. It is a bright sunny summer day, early afternoon. The sun is to your back, and your subject is in front of you and is of average color. What aperture setting and shutter speed would you choose for this photograph? Why?
I seem to find myself in this situation regularly, and I am curious how others confront the same situation. Enjoy!
Why? Shutter speed is just getting the exposure right. F/stop is to minimize DOF. Standard Sunny 16. Unless I miscounted my fingers I think the numbers match up.
Why? Shutter speed is just getting the exposure right. F/stop is to minimize DOF. Standard Sunny 16. Unless I miscounted my fingers I think the numbers match up.
Actually, this being one of the reasons for the question. I have never been able to produce a sufficiently dense negative using the Sunny 16 rule on any type of camera, 35mm, 6x6, 6x9, 9x12, 4x5 , 8x10 etc. I'm wondering if my ability to judge what is actually "sunny" is the problem.
F/5.6 @ 1/1000. Bracket a couple of shots opening to f/4. That's making a lot of assumptions since it also depends on subject matter, subject movement, depth of field desired, type of lens in use and a few other points I forget at the time.
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"...one shot and your reputation depends this single negative. It is a bright sunny summer day, early afternoon. The sun is to your back, and your subject is in front of you and is of average color. [...] I seem to find myself in this situation regularly..."
hmmm... why am i thinking clint eastwood and sergio leone?
i have been quite fine with exposing "just about so" for 25 years now
set your shutter to 125 then forget about it. you've got one variable left. how many settings there? six? how long would it take you to learn to recognize six different shapes? six pitch values? six colours? how about six different exposure values?
Key stop for ISO100 is 1/125 s/s. F16 would give an average exposure at 1/125 or any other combination of EV15. Depending on the lens and the subject matter I would say a wider aperture to ensure good focus and assuming not a telephoto lens should be able to hand hold at 1/60. So I go 1/60 @ f/22. If a lot of shadows in the foreground due to clouds, et. al., then 1/60 @ f/16.
I'm wondering if my ability to judge what is actually "sunny" is the problem.
There is:
Sunny F/16
Hazy F/11
Cloudy F/8
Overcast F/5.6
Not to forget beach F/22 but I ignore this one.
If you ask somebody on the street "Is it sunny?" They'll say yes if it's not raining. Sunny and hazy don't look that different and even F/8 cloudy looks "sunny" to most people. So you need to get a feel for the differences.
You can look at the shadow edges to help judge things.
Or you can try walking around with a meter. Make mental reading. Then compare to the meter. Doesn't take too long to get a feel for things.
BTW I think I forgot a finger when I was counting But better to over expose by a stop.
Last edited by Nick Zentena; 03-12-2008 at 02:27 AM.
A hypothetical scenario - you choose the camera settings. 
But better to over expose by a stop.
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