Estimating Proper Exposure without a Light Meter @ digital grin

with all the doo-hickeys our cameras provide it easy to forget the old-school methods that have worked since the caveman days

I feel sooooo.. silly! I just discovered a tiny,hidden focus dial on my camera of almost a year....expect some real improvement from me...comin soon!!

Once apon a time we got a piece of paper with every roll of film that told us how to expose the film without a meter. They never called it the sunny 16 rule (sweet 16 as you called it) but that is what it was. Anyway I took a photo of the moon recently which came out grossly everexposed. I remembered the piece of paper and used the rule. It worked, got me within half a stop of correct first go.

Well .. Sweet 16 = Me using poetic license .. I employ alot of Poetic License when I write .. I'm the world's largest employer of immigrant poetics

Back in my 'film' days I read an article about 'shooting he moon' .. it was (from memory) 1\250'th of a second at F5.6

digital cameras have shutter speeds .. like .. 12 \ 332 .. ??? .. what up wit dat?

What rule is that? I'm gettin loast...again. lol

The "Sunny 16" rule .. is .. (from memory)

on a bright sunny day .. proper exposure is F16 and a shutter speed matching your film speed (asa\iso)

so .. with ISO 100 film .. a shutter speed of 125 @ f16


whether this holds true for digital is anybody's guess .. I guess I should read the article

;o)

The Sunny 16 rule.

Set your shutter speed to match or closely match your ISO. ie: You are using ISO 200 then set your shutter speed to 200th second.

If the weather is sunny, shadows have sharp edges. Use F/16

If the weather is a little overcast, shadows have soft edges. Use F/11

If the weather is overcast, shadows are hardly noticeable. Use F/8

If the weather is strongly overcast, no shadows visible. Use F/5.6