Origins of the Sunny 16 Rule?

[Tin Can]

I cannot believe your 3 meters were that close! Not my experience at all.

I prefer using the box instructions on 35mm Kodak as I have done for 56 years, I am only 63.

And isn't it another 'rule' to slightly overexpose film and underexpose digital?

Now if I could just get my studio lighting down... burning more FP 3000 today!

[jbenedict]

Back when roll film always came in boxes, there was usually a chart printed on the inside, I've found that the chart works pretty well. The 'sunny-16" may fall apart when we forget that the details we want are lower in value and will need more exposure. The old, "Expose for shadows, develop for highlights" rule. Consumer film can adapt itself to many things and especially overexposure. But, in the case of shadows, it cannot render something that hasn't been put there so it is important to get some light into those shadows.

[Mark Sawyer]

Sunny sixteen is a lucky accident of alliteration. (See? It happens more than you think!) The funny thing is, it stayed the same in 1960, when they recalculated the film speeds so all the ASA's doubled, (Tri-X and HP3, for example, went from 200 to 400), although the emulsions were the same.

Here in Arizona, we usually follow the Sunny go inside and have a beer rule...

[cyrus]

If I'm not mistaken, the Sunny 16 rule also requires you to round-down shutter speed --since there is no 1/100th stop, but there is /125th --down to 1/60th. But in any case the Sunny 16 rule was applied to BW film which has a wide lattitude of exposure.

[Tin Can]

I always had good fortune with Sunny 16 shooting square 35mm Kodachrome, aka 126 format.

This 1964 World's Fair Mustang conv illustrates that. I was 11 and had no idea what a meter was.

Obviously this an an example only and NOT LF. View with caution.

[BrianShaw]

...Obviously this an an example only and NOT LF. View with caution.

I hope the "LF police" will forgive that transgression. Nice pic. Reminds me of the car that my 3rd grade teacher bought that same year. Oh... I was sooooo in love with both her and her car. She jilted me later in the school year by marrying someone her own age. Miss McGowan, if you are reading this... I never forgave you but if you want to come groveling back you'd better still have the car!

[Corran]

Down here in the summer it's more like Sunny 22...

Sunny 11 in the winter/evening though!

[Keith Fleming]

In the many years I lived in Northern Virginia, I found the Sunny-16 rule to be accurate, and that, plus the charts and diagrams in the film boxes, allowed me to get good at guessing the correct f-stop for the conditions. Then I moved to the Olympic Peninsula and found my "expertise" no longer worked. I went back to using a meter almost all the time, but I would say the Sunny-11 rule is a much better model to follow here.

Keith

[BradS]

I think latitude makes a difference.

Yes. Very definitely latitude makes a difference. As does time of year and time of day.

[jcoldslabs]

So what you're all saying is, the "Sunny 16" rule works just fine....except when it doesn't.

Call me technology-dependent, but I'm sticking with my light meters!

Jonathan