Used the Sunny 16 rule today- great results

[emtp563]

This is the first time I was able to get outside on a snowy day with bright sunshine. The sky was clear and the sun was almost overhead with harsh shadows around noon. I wanted to see for myself whether or not Sunny 16 gets the right exposure. I was using ISO 100, so I set my 30D to M and dialed in f/16 and 1/100. I was shooting my kid sledding, so I preferred a Tv of 1/200- I adjusted the aperture accordingly to f/11. Sure enough the shot came out perfectly exposed. I shot the same subject in Av mode at f/11 and the shot came out 1 full stop under exposed resulting in grey snow. True, I could have used Av with +1 EC, but what fun is that? Here is a pic I chose where the frame consists of mainly snow:



Sunny 16 Rulz!

[Hellashot]

Were you checking your histogram? Look at the histogram of your posting and you'll see it is very over exposed.

I turned down the RGB levels from 1.00 to about 0.55 plus darkened the highlights a little more (5%). My image will probably look a little different in the web browser than in PSE 3, plus I had to do heavy compression to get it under 100kb, setting 4 during save.

[jej826]

The snow looks white in first shot.Gray in the second.I prefer white snow.

[Hellashot]

Comparing the 2, the first one is so white/bright it just about makes my eyes squint as if I were actually there and having to squint because it was so bright. I'd rather have an easier picture to look at.

In my edit, the parts of the snow that are sticking up that are getting about a 90 degree hit from the sun are bright white, and the flatter part of the snow that molds with the ground is a more subdued white. In the original, those parts sticking up are very, very bright.

[PacAce]

Originally Posted by jej826

The snow looks white in first shot.Grey in the second.I prefer white snow although is is slightly over exposed.

Yup. Have to agree. The original looks more realistic.

[emtp563]

The two subjects look almost identical between the two shots, the snow is all that looks different. Yes, my histo. was blinking like mad, but this is the way the scene looked in reality. The snow was extremely bright. I like your revision of the pic better, as it brings the detail out of the snow. I wanted to shoot today using Sunny 16 just to see how they came out. I was impressed.

[Mark_Cohran]

I love shooting snow scenes, but they're tough to meter. One thing to remember about the sunny f16 rule, whereas the aperture variable is consistent from lens to lens, there can (and probably is) some variability from the ISO standard and the camera sensor. I know that that was true with film and all indications are that it's true with cameras (for example, many users reporting the need to dial in as much as 2/3 stops exposure compensation with some Digital Rebels). So, as with most things in photography the Sunny f16 thumbrule provides a good starting point, but to get the best results you may need to adjust to your camera's specific response.

Thanks for a great example of an old standard guideline.

Mark

[rowdyred94]

There was a bunch of detail lost in the clothing on the kids with the revision. I'd say there's a happy medium in there, somewhere. I tend to lean toward the original. Why do I need to see that much shadow in the snow?

In this case, it's not clipping. It's just "white". You can't interpret the histo the same way when so much of the scene is, in fact, supposed to be white.

[rhys]

I'd love to find a full exposure table. The sunny 16 rule doesn't mean an awful lot on its own.

[zacker]

the original image, although a tad over exposed did look much better... unless the snow there really is that dirty. personally, id crop out most of the snow and get rid of all that white!

[emtp563]

Originally Posted by rhys

I'd love to find a full exposure table. The sunny 16 rule doesn't mean an awful lot on its own.

Sure it does, you don't need to carry a table around. Sunny 16 = f/16 @ 1/ISO. I have my camera set to 1/3 stop increments, so I started at f/16 and 1/100 but wanted f/11. f/11 is "three clicks down" on my jog dial, so I had to adjust my shutter speed "three clicks up" on my wheel- which was 1/200. I made a reference card that I keep in my camera bag in case it's not sunny:

[emtp563]

Originally Posted by zacker

the original image, although a tad over exposed did look much better... unless the snow there really is that dirty. personally, id crop out most of the snow and get rid of all that white!

Nope, the snow was tatally "clean." I picked out the pic with the most white in it just to illustrate an example.

[BigBlueDodge]

To all those saying that the picture is over-exposed, tell me how you are deriving that? To me the original looks spot on.

[crayfish13]

Personally i prefer the original the snow look white as it should

[august23]

Lol it's like saying the white parts of a shirt are overexposed parts of a shirt. I think the original is perfect.