Sunny 16 with Fuji... a bit off?

[Ambulater]

Wow, and I thought I was old. ;-) I bought my first entry level film DSLR back in 1984, a Minolta X-370. Even that camera had light metering with an option for auto shutter speed.

 

[Mateus1]

The camera is inducing you to raise exposure to get correct mid-tones, which with sunny 16 on digital would blow highlights. This is why I normally shoot -2/3 in sunny 16 because the metered value overexposes.

My X-E2 overesposes 2/3 EV, so I almost always shot with exposure compensation set on -2/3.

 

[bowportes]

Wow, and I thought I was old. ;-) I bought my first entry level film DSLR back in 1984, a Minolta X-370. Even that camera had light metering with an option for auto shutter speed.

 

[VictorTrasvina]

True but we seem to forget that Negative Film it's almost impossible to overexposed (3 or 4 stops over or under was never a problem) while digital sensors haven't achieved that (not with the highlights at least)

 

[peripheralfocus]

How are you determining the camera is "off" against sunny 16?

Casually in several sunlit scenes,

As you appear to already know, this can't really tell you anything -- a real-life scene can fool any kind of reflective meter in many different ways. And as others have pointed out, the Sunny 16 rule is an approximation -- it's not that exact to begin with and varies by conditions.

and then since you asked, also pointing at uniform surfaces reasonably close to a grey card which I don't have.

Right, this is the correct idea, but the "reasonably close" part could easily account for a 2/3rds stop difference (or more). To have any hope of actually measuring what you want to measure, you'll have to use a well-made gray card that has a well-calibrated and known reflectance.

Either average or spot metering,

Again, you're on the correct track. Don't use a multi-pattern metering mode that "thinks" about the scene it is pointed at. But this is where you have to use a gray card -- and fill the frame with it. It also should be held at an angle that prevents the camera from seeing glare reflections. I have an 8 x 10-inch gray card made by Kodak that is big enough to do this easily.

All that said, these "rules" and standards are not precise enough to make any particularly useful conclusions based on 2/3rds of a stop either way.

Edit: I did a few tests this way (calibrated gray card filling the frame) with some of my cameras (all Nikons) in the 1990s, in California summer weather, and the meters agreed with the Sunny 16 rule within about half a stop or so. I didn't think I could get any more precise than that.

 

[C41]

The camera is inducing you to raise exposure to get correct mid-tones, which with sunny 16 on digital would blow highlights. This is why I normally shoot -2/3 in sunny 16 because the metered value overexposes.

OK, that's starting to make sense to me...

 

[Shawn67]

Many of us were wary of the electronic shutter release innovation. My Konica T3 SLR was fully mechanical while its successor, the F-T1 wasn't. You had to use batteries with the latter.

Nikon F3 was kind of cool about that. It was an electronic shutter but with a dead battery you could still fire the shutter (at 1/60 of a second) using an emergency release on the body.

Shawn

 

[bs1946]

Wow, and I thought I was old. ;-) I bought my first entry level film DSLR back in 1984, a Minolta X-370. Even that camera had light metering with an option for auto shutter speed.

 

[Vic Chapman]

Many of us were wary of the electronic shutter release innovation. My Konica T3 SLR was fully mechanical while its successor, the F-T1 wasn't. You had to use batteries with the latter.

Nikon F3 was kind of cool about that. It was an electronic shutter but with a dead battery you could still fire the shutter (at 1/60 of a second) using an emergency release on the body.

Shawn

I remember Canon made the electric A1 but at the same time for extreme conditions of heat and cold they produced the all mechanical F1. It was said that if you dropped it on a rock - the rock would break.

 

[slimandy]

The sunny 16 rule makes some assumptions. Were you shooting in perfect daylight at 2pm ? Was your subject in direct light? Did you make your 2/3rd stop analysis from the subject or from the whole scene?

2/3rds of a stop doesn't seem that significant bearing in mind it's a rule of thumb.

--
https://www.flickr.com/photos/34270522@N04/

 

[C41]

2/3rds of a stop doesn't seem that significant bearing in mind it's a rule of thumb.

It may not be. I suppose that was part of my question: whether there is actually anything interesting or systematic going on here that I should understand, or not. A quick google (like this conversation) reveals a lot of people talking about 2/3 stop one way or another...

 

[Halwick]

Wow, and I thought I was old. ;-) I bought my first entry level film DSLR back in 1984, a Minolta X-370. Even that camera had light metering with an option for auto shutter speed.

--
Chris Lee

Isn't it amazing way back when...even before the 1950s....that photographers were able to capture great images with primitive equipment that didn't even have a light meter? LOL Look at the early Ansel Adams photos.

I started photography back in the 1970s and even at that time marveled at how photographers prior to the 1950s (which I thought of as "dark ages") were able to capture images on "primitive" cameras that didn't have light meters. I've seen hand held meters and 35mm cameras with rudimentary selenium light meters (pre-1960s), then cadmium meters (1960s) and silicon meters (1970s) which had improved metering responses and sensitivity. Those meters were either average or center-weighted and I've been in situations where the meter was fooled and it overexposed or underexposed. Very few cameras had selectable metering patterns.

When I had to shoot fast and quick, I'd fall back on the Sunny 16 rule, set the shutter speed/aperture accordingly, manual focus to hyperfocus (which gave a wide depth of field due to the f/16 aperture setting). These settings essentially gave me a "point and shoot" camera. Usually pictures came out okay.

I don't know who worked up the Sunny 16 rule, but I'm sure it was after years of experience and experimentation to develop that handy rule-of-thumb.

I haven't experimented too much on various digital cameras to see how the sunny 16 rule works out, but I've noticed my old Canon S30 and Panasonic TZ5 underexposes slightly to get richer colors. Just bought a Fuji X30 and now I'm wondering if what you're describing will happen....especially if I use Classic Chrome setting.

 

[Ysarex]

I was reviewing the "sunny 16" rule with someone on the XT1 this weekend -- just as part of understanding aperture/shutter, not that you could ever use it in a pinch with such a camera. Anyway, the readings on the camera meter were very consistently off, by about -2/3 of a stop. What's going on? Does ISO work differently with digital? If this is an error it would lead to overexposure, not a good idea.

Sorry I'm a little late to this one -- it's been raining.

Today is a bright blue sky sunny day and I had to walk to the grocery store. I have an XE-2 which seems to be in good working order and has worked consistently now for a couple of years. At 12:31pm I stopped on the corner and believe I got a good representative full-sun average scene -- shot it wide.

I saved the raw files and loaded them up into Raw Digger where I saved the raw file histograms (green channel only). I overlaid these three exposures: 1. Sunny 16, 2. The camera metered exposure. 3. The correct exposure (+.67 more than the camera metered exposure).

Put it all in a nice chart for you.



I set the meter to read a center weighted average. My XE-2 wanted to exposure about a third stop more than Sunny 16. Sunny 16 was a full stop less than what I'm calling correct exposure. Don't want to open up a discussion here about the definition of "correct exposure" -- that will only result in a troll feeding frenzy. I define correct exposure as full sensor saturation -- diffuse highlights placed at the sensor threshold. Want to call it something else knock yourself out. The purple exposure above is a full sensor exposure -- best possible photograph comes from that exposure.

 

[C41]

I don't know who worked up the Sunny 16 rule, but I'm sure it was after years of experience and experimentation to develop that handy rule-of-thumb.

I always assumed that this was simply how the ASA (now ISO) scale was defined! (Never had any idea whether DIN numbers were practically useful.)

As for Fuji cameras -- I've been assuming that especially if you're shooting JPG with their film sims, those are set up to deliver optimal results (in their opinion) with the way the camera meter reads. I've been satisfied myself, as long as I avoid pattern metering, which sometimes gives what I consider overexposure (maybe more what Ysarex might like).

 

[Ysarex]

I've been satisfied myself, as long as I avoid pattern metering, which sometimes gives what I consider overexposure (maybe more what Ysarex might like).

I hate overexposure -- avoid it like the plague. I only save raw files and so exposure for me is only measured at the raw file level.

 

[57even]

True but we seem to forget that Negative Film it's almost impossible to overexposed (3 or 4 stops over or under was never a problem) while digital sensors haven't achieved that (not with the highlights at least)

That's kind of misleading. Negative film had blocked shadows, but gradual highlight rolloff. Even so, it was always 'adjusted' in the lab. We just never saw it.

No different to adjusting in Lightroom in theory.

The 14 stops of DR on some digital cameras is comparable with good negative film, but the response is very different.