shooting wide open on sunny days?

int2str wrote in post #9111158
Are you sure this is the right thread for that reply?

If it is, what modifier did you have in mind? An instant canopy? Clouds?

PMCphotography wrote in post #9112944

I guess you guys haven't heard of a sun scrim like those made by California Sunbounce, huh?

JeffreyG wrote in post #9110525
Snow or not, the sunny 16 rule should represent the brightest outdoor light.

I disagree with this on several points.

One is accuracy. This just isn't a true statement. Sunny 16 is not tailored to the highlights, but rather to the average scene in bright sun. The intent isn't to manage highlights, but to render the overall scene at middle gray.

And when the scene is biased towards having only highlights, Sunny 16 will result in overexposure. This is especially true with snowy scenes where we are purposely trying to place the snow tones on manageable gray levels in the image. That means exposing for highlights, not exposing for the average scene.

With Sunny 16, some highlights will be blown. The face in full sun will turn out okay, but the sunlit cloud tops (for example) will be blown. Usually, that's not a problem for us--the clouds are background and we are more concerned about the face. But if those cloud tops are our subject, then the image will be overexposed and we will lose detail just where we want it.

Ansel Adams had learned his exposure craft, in the days before the Zone System and before he had access to good spot meters, in northern California. In Yosemite and San Francisco, there are lots of trees, hills, dark-colored rocks, and deep blue sky kept that way by relatively low sun angles. Then, he went to the Southwest, and found that his exposures weren't working. The sun was higher, the red, orange, and tan rocks exposed at higher values, and the lack of trees removed the balancing shadow detail. He had to develop a new set of exposure experiences for that region.

Rick "who carries an 8x neutral density filter for special occasions" Denney