Simple Exposure Guide

ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 24,129 moderator
edited March 22, 2008 in Technique
Using Kodak definitions:
ziggy53
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums

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  • ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 24,129 moderator
    edited March 20, 2008
    Sunny 16

    I just changed it to better protect the highlights. It is based on several different sources and assumes an accurate interpretation of the lighting conditions.

    Yes, it lines up pretty well now with the "Sunny 16" rule of ISO 100, 1/100th, f16.

    Always bracket when using a rudimentary guide like this and interpolate for different exposures.
    ziggy53
    Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
  • ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 24,129 moderator
    edited March 20, 2008
    I should also add that simple guides like these are reasonably accurate from 2-3 hours after sunrise until 2-3 hours before sunset.
    ziggy53
    Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
  • pathfinderpathfinder Super Moderators Posts: 14,708 moderator
    edited March 20, 2008
    Ziggy, as you know, I posted a thread about Sunny 16 about 2 years ago.

    Those of us who shot slide film years ago, remember when you opened the Kodachrome box and laid it out flat, that your table was basically printed right there on the inside of every box. Back in the days of Cadmium sulfide light meters, the table was usually more accurate than the cadmium sulfide light meter. At least that was my experience.

    Sunny 16 is remarkable accurate, because the sun's intensity does not change very much at all during daylight almost anywhere on the globe. Sand or snow does act like a big fill reflector beneath your subjects - and adds about 1 stop more light as your table displays.

    It is kind of fun to look through exif data and predict exposures based on Snnny 16, and compare them to the actual exif data. They usually match very closely, as I attempted to show in my post mentioned previously.

    With modern electronically controlled cameras and lenses, we have sophisticated shutters capable of 1/12th, 1/15th, 1/20th, 1/25th, 1/30th, 1/50th, 1/60th, 1/100th, 1/125th etc but older, mechanical shutters that we both used 40 years ago, usually offered 1/25th, 1/50th, 1/100th, or they offered 1/30th, 1/60th, and 1/125th, but the real difference in exposure between 1/100th and 1/125 was just ignored as insignificant. My Sekonic L358 Incident light meter uses 1/30th, 1,60th, 1/125th and has no offerings for 1/25th, 1/50th etc so they don't think the difference is vital either apparently.

    I think this kind of shutter speed variation initially can be confusing to folks who have not used manual exposure cameras previously.

    The beauty of Sunny 16 to me, is that I cannot remember your table verbatim, but if I know that in bright sunlight at a given ISO, if I set my aperture at f16, the shutter speed will be 1/ISO, and I can then construct the rest of the table if needed.

    Great topic to discuss, that is still relevant in our modern age of cameras with sensitive light meters, that still get it wrong sometimesthumb.gif
    Pathfinder - www.pathfinder.smugmug.com

    Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
  • ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 24,129 moderator
    edited March 20, 2008
    pathfinder wrote:
    Ziggy, as you know, I posted a thread about Sunny 16 about 2 years ago.

    Those of us who shot slide film years ago, remember when you opened the Kodachrome box and laid it out flat, that your table was basically printed right there on the inside of every box. ...

    Thanks Path. It was in a similar nostalgic moment that I created this chart. I actually remember when there was a little data sheet included in each box of film that included a little chart like this as well as basic information about the film like what it was intended to be used for.

    I used to go out with my Pentax H1a, which did not have a light meter, and a Pentax 50mm lens. For exposure I would refer to the data sheet and then look for clouds and shadows to determine which exposure.

    Ah, the good old days.
    ziggy53
    Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
  • LiquidAirLiquidAir Registered Users Posts: 1,751 Major grins
    edited March 21, 2008
    I have been working on learning to think of lighting conditions in terms of exposure value (EV) rather than shutter and aperture. Thought of that way "Sunny-16" is EV 14.7 at ISO 100 and the Kodak table is EV 15 at ISO 100. After I got my incident light meter I carried it around with me for a few days to measure different kinds of lighting conditions. By putting the display in EV mode it was much easier for me to build a mental map of typical lighting conditions. I wish that my camera had a built in EV display to save me the trouble of doing the conversions in my head. Here is link to a set of tables I built to help me learn to convert (and also as a JavaScript exercise):

    http://www.liquidairphoto.com/ev_table.html
    http://www.liquidairphoto.com/av_table.html
    http://www.liquidairphoto.com/ss_table.html

    Some notes from my testing:

    EV14.7 protects whites in direct sun when shooting RAW. Since shadows in direct sun are very dark, if there are no whites in the scene it is often worth pushing the exposure a stop to recover more shadow detail.

    It is easy to miss the little bit of haze on the sun which drops the exposure below EV14.7. If there is any risk of high clouds partially blocking the sun, be very aware of the cloud coverage and adjust appropriately.

    EV12 for "open shade" means that your subject cannot see the sun but can see at least 75% of the sky. By the time your subject is shaded from 50% of the sky the exposure will be closer to EV11 than EV12. Open areas under an awning or tree branches can be as dark as EV10. I have seen densly forested areas as dark as EV6.
  • pathfinderpathfinder Super Moderators Posts: 14,708 moderator
    edited March 22, 2008
    Thinking in EV makes a lot of sense, Ken.

    I learned manual exposure in apertures and shutter seeds, so I have to translate first to think in EV. I may need to work some more with EV - it always feels like a second language to mene_nau.gif
    Pathfinder - www.pathfinder.smugmug.com

    Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
  • ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 24,129 moderator
    edited March 22, 2008
    pathfinder wrote:
    Thinking in EV makes a lot of sense, Ken.

    I learned manual exposure in apertures and shutter seeds, so I have to translate first to think in EV. I may need to work some more with EV - it always feels like a second language to mene_nau.gif

    15524779-Ti.gif

    Many, if not most, of the Hasselblad system of lenses use/used an EV system which would couple both the shutter speed and aperture to an EV setting. When you change one of the exposure settings, the other would "tag along" to maintain the EV relationship. Good stuff! thumb.gif
    ziggy53
    Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
  • georgesgeorges Registered Users Posts: 138 Major grins
    edited March 22, 2008
    ziggy53 wrote:
    15524779-Ti.gif

    Many, if not most, of the Hasselblad system of lenses use/used an EV system which would couple both the shutter speed and aperture to an EV setting. When you change one of the exposure settings, the other would "tag along" to maintain the EV relationship. Good stuff! thumb.gif

    That's how the Hyper-Program mode works on my Pentax bodies.

    As an aside, I was laughing to myself about the main topic of this thread while teaching my last photo class.

    One of the students asked about my favorite books and I mentioned the little Kodak Photoguide I still carry in my camera bag. I laid it on the bed of the A/V camera so they could see the exposure calculator dial on the big screen.

    This lead to an interesting discussion about people abandioning knowledge to the magic electronics inside of the camera.

    Sometimes the best topics in the class aren't in my lesson plan.
    See you later, gs

    http://georgesphotos.net
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