Problem with Sunny 16 Rule

[70to210mmf4]

On re-reading your original post you pretend this with the premise that your last roll of film came back badly under exposed, but you show us no prince

Let's forget the film thing. It's just confusing people for some reason. The picture I posted is a photo of my backyard taken with a digital camera and is underexposed when applying the sunny 16 rule. Most likely because I didn't take into account the winter light.

 

[Derrel]

Good luck with your problem. Personally I am quite familiar with raw files and automated exports.

I have patiently tried to make something clear to you, but you have come to a conclusion that I do not feel is warrantedand you seem to have very little experience with raw processing files, otherwise you would realize that certain times the Rawdata needs to be custom tuned for the camera exposure and the scene, And you are ignoring the three factors which I listed earlier as being critical to the final appearance of any JPEG that is made from any Raw file.

You keep complaining about your steak being undercooked, but you seem to fail to recognize that the cooking process cannot be automated. If you want to perfect steak you have to cook it the right way. All steak starts out as raw meat, and the idea that One size fits all is the perfect cooking temperature for every steak size and thickness is a falsehood.

again, good luck with your problem.

 

[70to210mmf4]

Good luck with your problem. Personally I am quite familiar with raw files and exports directly.

I have patiently tried to make something clear to you, but you have come to a conclusion that I do not feel is warranted

You keep complaining about your steak being undercooked, but you seem to fail to recognize that the cooking process cannot be automated. If you want to perfect steak you have to cook it the right way. Allsteak starts out as raw meat, and the idea that One size fits all is the perfect cooking temperature for every steak size and thickness is a falsehood.

again, good luck with your problem.

Thank you for trying to explain it to me but your steak analogy is not clear to me at all.

 

[Derrel]

OK I'll come right out and say it. Your original post alleges that your last roll of film came out under exposed.

Then you give us one photograph to look at and you tell us that despite the sunny 16 rule the picture that you show is under exposed. In both cases what I am saying is it's very possible that one of the film was badly developed And secondly it's very possible, in fact likely, that your daylight seen shot on digital was not bad the exposed in the camera but was badly developed by the Raw software.

Automated development often makes really funny mistakes. Raw digital image data looks like a black box I noticed that your automated JPEG also looks like a black box. I don't know how much experience you have, but I have developed probably around 300,000 or so digital images over over 20 years,and I don't want to pull the experience card on youbut I can look at your image and tell that it is exposed adequately but the Rawprocessing is bad

Going back to my beef steak analogy, you are complaining about a picture that looks too dark or a steak that is either under cooked or overcooked. The problem is not the steak, which in this case is the Raw data, but which is the cooking time and temperature , Which in my analogy is akin to the time and temperature on the grill. When you get a bad steak, meaning when it is under cooked or overcooked, the problem is usually not the steak itself, but is it cooking which again is the raw data processing

 

[jcdeboever]

Sunny 16 is the same for film or digital. All this steak talk has me hungry for some steak and eggs. I like my steak gently agitated...Again, go out with your digital camera and practice the rule. You may be surprised by how accurate it really is. There are charts you can print out and use along side of it. It really is a fantastic journey in the art of reading light.

 

[smoke665]

Whether in camera or in post the image you posted is grossly under exposed. The histogram from you image.

 

[480sparky]

Whether in camera or in post the image you posted is grossly under exposed. The histogram from you image.
View attachment 175722

That's because the image is full of shadows.

Notice the yellow 'hump'? That's the sunlit grass. Yes, it's underexposed, but not 'grossly'.

 

[smoke665]

Notice the yellow 'hump'? That's the sunlit grass. Yes, it's underexposed, but not 'grossly'.

The area you refer to is only in the darkest pixels of the midtones, if it even made it out of the shadows. There's not much if any midtones, no highlights and no whites. The OP has his post marked not okay to edit, so I didn't try to determine exactly how much, but I'd still hold to my original statement.

 

[480sparky]

Notice the yellow 'hump'? That's the sunlit grass. Yes, it's underexposed, but not 'grossly'.

The area you refer to is only in the darkest pixels of the midtones, if it even made it out of the shadows. There's not much if any midtones, no highlights and no whites. The OP has his post marked not okay to edit, so I didn't try to determine exactly how much, but I'd still hold to my original statement.
View attachment 175724

Try making a histogram of just the grass. Then maybe you'll understand what I'm talking about.

 

[smoke665]

Notice the yellow 'hump'? That's the sunlit grass. Yes, it's underexposed, but not 'grossly'.

The area you refer to is only in the darkest pixels of the midtones, if it even made it out of the shadows. There's not much if any midtones, no highlights and no whites. The OP has his post marked not okay to edit, so I didn't try to determine exactly how much, but I'd still hold to my original statement.
View attachment 175724

Try making a histogram of just the grass. Then maybe you'll understand what I'm talking about.

A histogram measures the brightness of all the pixels from black to white across the whole of the image area, pulling a section out of context doesn't change the exposure value of said overall image.

 

[480sparky]

Notice the yellow 'hump'? That's the sunlit grass. Yes, it's underexposed, but not 'grossly'.

The area you refer to is only in the darkest pixels of the midtones, if it even made it out of the shadows. There's not much if any midtones, no highlights and no whites. The OP has his post marked not okay to edit, so I didn't try to determine exactly how much, but I'd still hold to my original statement.
View attachment 175724

Try making a histogram of just the grass. Then maybe you'll understand what I'm talking about.

A histogram measures the brightness of all the pixels from black to white across the whole of the image area, pulling a section out of context doesn't change the exposure value of said overall image.

I understand that. Really, I do.

But the shadows are not sunlit. That's why they're called shadows. The sun is not shining in those areas. Hence, they're dark.

The grass, however, IS sunlit, and is reasonably exposed. Perfectly? No, I never said it was. Sunny16 doesn't guarantee a perfect exposure. No one ever said it does. It's a guideline. A guesstimage. A rule-of-thumb. General principle. Method of procedure.

And I don't see a pallet of white printer paper or a snowdrift in the scene either.

 

[smoke665]

But the shadows are not sunlit. That's why they're called shadows. The sun is not shining in those areas. Hence, they're dark.

The grass, however, IS sunlit, and is reasonably exposed.

Working from phone so forgot to mention the histogram above is from just a small crop of the brightest area of grass. I wouldn't call it reasonable as it doesnt include any midtones, highlights or whites. Comparing the full histogram shows just how bad under it is

Again we could argue semantics vs segments, but it's already accepted even by the OP that the image is under. The question still remains why. I agree with you on the Sunny 16 only being a guide. I tend to lean toward Derrel's steak analogy but without viewing the actual raw file it's hard to say if the OP erred in using the rule and failed to read the light correctly as JC theorized or if the OP erred in post correction.

 

[480sparky]

But the shadows are not sunlit. That's why they're called shadows. The sun is not shining in those areas. Hence, they're dark.

The grass, however, IS sunlit, and is reasonably exposed.

Working from phone so forgot to mention the histogram above is from just a small crop of the brightest area of grass. I wouldn't call it reasonable as it doesnt include any midtones, highlights or whites. Comparing the full histogram shows just how bad under it is
View attachment 175738
Again we could argue semantics vs segments, but it's already accepted even by the OP that the image is under. The question still remains why. I agree with you on the Sunny 16 only being a guide. I tend to lean toward Derrel's steak analogy but without viewing the actual raw file it's hard to say if the OP erred in using the rule and failed to read the light correctly as JC theorized or if the OP erred in post correction.

And if you go back and look, you'll see I never said it was well-exposed either. I'm simply pointing out that the dark areas are dark because,...... well....... they're not enough light in those areas.

I guess I can't explain it any more than that.

 

[limr]

Sheesh, this discussion has become quite overwrought, and the steak analogy is only serving to confuse things.

Okay, okay, maybe there were other reasons that the posted image looked underexposed, including a less-than-perfect conversion from raw to jpeg. Sure, maybe the film images, which we have not seen, were improperly developed.

But why look for a zebra when you see horse prints?

What it comes down to? There are more factors involved in metering the scene other than the presence of bright sunlight, and the Sunny 16 rule takes some practice before it becomes a more reliable way of metering. The OP's early attempts are yielding underexposed shots. He or she has more information now and will continue practicing.

 

[smoke665]

if you go back and look, you'll see I never said it was well-exposed

I think the difference lies in what we consider the amount of underexposure and in what constitutes a "reasonable exposure". Going back to something you said earlier about snow, if you did a portrait of someone in snow and cropped them out. Would a reasonable exposure of the person only include a small shadow section, or would you want some midtones, highlights and whites?

I dont think we're way off but in any case were going off topic from the OP, so I'm bowing out.