Mastering Sunny 16 - Tips and Tricks!

i love to use sunny 16

What if You're using a Prime Lens?

The Sunny 16 rule doesn’t always work. It really depends on where you are. If you’re in a consistently sunny place, it’ll work a lot of the time. However, if you’re in London or Paris (or any other city that isn’t well lit/sunny most of the time), then this isn’t a good rule. It’s also not a good rule if you’re in a dark room, with artificial light. Sunny 16 is for STREET photography. If you’re in a dark room, let’s say at a family event, it’s not street photography. The settings will need to be different for that. I’m currently sitting in my living room, at night, with my light on, and applying this rule just causes the light meter to say that the image will be very underexposed. Keep this in mind when using this rule…

Thank you for making this method clearly and helping me with ine of my loves of life...photography. I hope to shoot some amazing shots and be a continual learner as I just subscribed. Is there any reason why this video is about film photography instead of digital?

Should have drawn the shutter speed the other way round.

For over exposure shots, shouldn't it be choosing either reducing the ISO, or reducing the shutter speed? Adjusting both? doesn't that equate to the original ISO 400 and shutter 500, i.e. no change?

I'm sure some people are going from video to, trying to figure out how this applies to pushing/pulling ISO. Granted, this is from someone actually spending their first day ever learning about film photography, but have had experience in digital.

Everything works in stops, in which that halving your shutter speed is one stop, doubling it is also one stop. and the more you have and double, the more stops. Aperture kinda has their own system it seems so let's ignore that and assume whatever options there are for aperture is a stop higher or lower.

ISO works like shutter speed. You halve it, it's over-exposed 1 stop. Halve it again, it's over-exposed 2 stops. Double it, back to 1, etc. And so in this case, we have a triangle where you can choose to keep one and change the other depending on the use case. Let's set an example.

People online are saying to lower Kodak Portra 400 to 200 speed, which is over-exposed by one stop. For this example, without going into changing DoF for portraits, we'll say we're doing landscapes on a sunny day. So in usual, we would be shooting ISO 400 at 1/500 with f/22. But since we lowered our ISO to 200, we actually need to underexpose by one stop on the shutter speed. Now, we're shooting ISO 200 at 1/1,000 with f/22.


So tl;dr, if I'm right, everything works in stops. In order to push or pull your film's speed, you have to choose the opposite of the exposure for your ISO. So if you pull your film, you have to push your shutter speed or aperture. And vice versa.

AGAIN, I LITERALLY AM READING ALL THIS IN ONE DAY WITH NO FIELD EXPERIENCE IN FILM PHOTOGRAPHY.

So I just purchased my first film camera, a mint condition Canon F1, the light meter works and so when I try to do the S16 it’s not really meshing with the meter. Is that because it’s in aperture mode?

What about old cameras where shutter speeds only range to 200, are these cameras still ok to use

As for his first example for compensation assuming my camera does go only to 1/1000 would I need to change the ISO then?
So with me having a let's say Portra 400 in my camera so my shutter speed at 1/500 and it's sunny so I should use f/16 but because of let's say depth of field I want f/8 would I then compensate by setting shutter speed to 1/1000 and IS0 200 ??
On this note, if I want a certain depth of field and a certain let say blur with the settings to get those resulting in overexposure could I just change ISO to like 50 to even it out? I'm guessing not every film is as flexible with over and under exposing on the ISO

What about NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY EXPOSURES? Can't find tips anywhere =/

For quick feedback when learning manual photography, use the M mode and Sunny 16 on your DSLR. Your settings will be saved for viewing in your photo editor. It's faster and cheaper than burning several rolls of film and waiting on the mail.

My understanding is if you lower your ASA by one stop, then lower your Shutter Speed by one stop, you will remain at the same Exposure Value. If you want to overexpose by one stop, you would adjust one or the other, not both.

Love the dog, Aussie blue heeler by the looks. My concerns are that there are a lot of film cameras that have a shutter speed of 500, so your example of opening up to a f-stop of 8 cannot possibly work by going to a shutter speed that you do not have. So in my mind, the film speed plays a big part as well.

Wow!! Both your videos on Sunny 16 have helped me tremendously! Thank you so much! Your other videos are awesome as well! You’re an awesome teacher!😊

Great video and very helpful! I have a question, when I go to over-expose my film for safety, will the aperture follow along as well? So imagine it's a fully sunny day (f16) and I have a 400 ISO film and I over-expose setting my shutter speed to 1/250 instead of 1/500, will then the aperture remain f16 or would change to f22? Sorry it might be a silly question, but I am just starting out :)

Thanks in advance!

Ok so for safety
f16 1/250 Sunny Outdoor (+1)
.......etc
f2.8 1/250 Well lit Indoor (+1)
f1.7 1/250 Poorly lit Indoor (+1)

I want to shoot f8 so
f8 1/30 Well lit Indoor (+1)
but hand held so
f5.6 1/60 Well lit Indoor (+1) or
f8 1/60 Well lit Indoor (+/- 0)
&
f4 1/60 Poorly lit Indoor (+1) or
f5.6 1/60 Poorly lit Indoor (+/- 0)
&
f1.7 1/60 Dark/shadow Indoor (+1)
f2.8 1/60 Dark/shadow Indoor (+/-0)
All on 400 ISO Colour film
Have I got it right?

I have a Pentax program plus. Not sure how to use the exposure compensation buttons. Any advice?

Hello I am just seeing this video lol I hope you will reply, but i am new to film and i understand all that you are saying; however, what if i wanted my aperture to be f/2.8 but my camera's shutter speed stops at 1000? what would I do then if im shooting with a 200 film? thank you

Love this video!!! What do you do if your camera doesn’t go past 1/1000 and you need to drop your Aperture but you can equal it? My Pentax k1000 only goes up to 1/1000 and if I want to drop the aperture to F8 it won’t be equal..

🧠

question: If I do as suggested and rate my 400 film as 200 and carry on taking pictures, when I take the film to be developed do they need to know that's what I did? Or is it better not to include that when taking the film in?

Thanks ! It was super helpful !

I'm not sure after 33 sec's. If l can continue watching this.
SIT ON YOUR HANDS!
Your hand constantly popping in and out of shot is, at the least, annoying.
Glad l'm not Epileptic.

911 QUESTION***** (LOL). If I'm indoors, but getting a lot of natural lighting from the sun by being directly next to large window, would you still recommend F16? Or drop down to F11?

I just picked up an olympus m-1 with a sus light meter so ye im about to go out tomorrow with this info. Film is expensive lmao

I'm loving your videos and finding them very helpful as a beginner. But also bruh can you change the battery in your smoke detector? lol

This really helped out. Just inherited My late uncle's Canon AT-1 I have admired for years.Unsure on Matching the Aperture and Shutter speed. just wanted to say Thank You Man. Keep it up.

Too many numbers. I'll just buy a light meter 😂

is it sunny 16 apply for any ISO film?

hello. can anyone dumb it down for me?

How to compensate if shutter speed max 1000 using iso 500 or 800 using this sunny 16 rule? For example, from f16 down to 2 or 3 stop but the shutter speed can't go higher than 1/1000 what should do?

I am just starting with SLRs and this was incredibly helpful! Thank you so much. Cheers.

Thank you, this really helps me in understanding and using the Sunny 6 rule.

Hi, I installed the Light Meter app on the iPhone, but there is no sign, arrow, or indication indicating the speed measurement with the lens aperture, how do I know and i put 400 iso click on the button measure. The E V 10

Does sunny 16 only applies to film cameras? Or can this also applies to digital? Thanks!

what i don't understand with the app is that when i give it more like f11 but the camera's light meter says it can be the Hoof or too low how do I fix this?

Dude, you're awesome

Thanks for such clear explanation. It is really helpful :)

Hi can i ask if the concept of sunny 16 is the same with my camera that only have 1/175 shutter speed? How can i use f16 with only 1/175 speed if it need around 1/500 ?

sorry, I just wanted to clarify: If you do f16 + 1/500th shutter speed and you decide to change to f8 + 1/1200th of shutter speed...what's going to actually change in the photo itself? If you're compensating as you make these f-stop light changes by changing the shutter speed, why change the f-stop at all? how will the 2 photos be different?

same thing with the ISO - if you change the shutter speed as you change the ISO, what does the ISO change actually do to the photo? do some of these settings have more weight and affect the photo more than others?

Maan yous a real one for all this gold🙏🏻

Why would you want to shoot at F8 instead of F16 on a sunny day? Would F16 at 250 look different than F8 at 2000? Whats the reasoning for switching?

I've been doing digital photography for about 8 years, now a few days ago I ordered an analog film camera to try something new. And before it‘s even arrived I‘ve already learned so much more about photography. Nobody teaches you something like this when you start with digital photography, no book nor video.

i have minolta SR1 and my shutter speed maxes out at 500 so what should i do if I want to shoot at a lower aperture? Just over expose and be happy or get a different speed of film?

great videos, when you said about wanting to change your f number from 16 to 8, on iso 400, why would he be wanting to change the f number, because the sun had gone in slightly and it wasn't as sunny or? I don't understand quite why he couldn't just change his f number and keep the same shutter speed? thank u (:

Also, can you do a video about shooting indoors using this because in the other video you said it was different indoors

Thanks so much, i'm still finding it slightly complicated but i'm learning :P

I do not agree with your opinion about overexsposing the film, I think you can get a better result underexposing by one stop in order to preserve the highlights.

I watched both Sunny Sixteen videos. Excellent. After all these years, I finally understand, thanks to your clear and simple instruction. Nice presentation.

Minolta Gang🤟

thank youuu