Hi, I don’t speak English that well so sorry for any mistakes. I have Minolta x-700 and kodak 200 gold and I’m going to Hawaii, California etc. so very sunny places and I’m planning to photograph in the daylight. Everyone keeps telling me to follow the sunny 16 rule so that means that I should set my aperture to 11-16 and shutter to 225. But some people say that with this film and in these places I’m good with aperture on 4-5.6 and shutter on 125. I want my pictures to be on the overexposed side, but of course with visible details. So what would you reccomend?
The sunny 16 rule is more of a guideline than a set-in-stone rule. ISO 200 film would produce, on average, a decent exposure at 1/250 sec at f/16. You can adjust those settings if you like, say, to 1/125 at f/22 or 1/500 at f/11. All three are technically equal exposures. You will want to use longer shutter speeds and/or wider apertures when your scene is not as bright as being in bright sunlight.
Put a battery in the camera and learn to use/read the meter so you can get proper exposures. It will probably be more accurate and you may not always be taking pictures on sunny days, you might want to take pictures in the evening or on cloudy days. I'm not sure why you want to overexpose. I think it would be better to learn how to get proper exposures. If you want to know more about shooting film try Home - The Film Photography Project .
I agree that you should use the camera's metering rather than guessing for your exposures. I'm also confused as to why you'd want over-exposed images. There's a difference between what is called high-key and just blown whites. The camera takes a couple of button batteries that are still very common and easy to obtain. You can put it on P, which on a modern camera amounts to full-auto, the camera decides both aperture and shutter speed for you. You can shoot aperture-priority automatic, where you set the lens aperture and the camera sets the shutter speed. You can also shoot fully manual by setting both aperture and shutter speed. The meter in the viewfinder shows the aperture you've set and the shutter speed it would use if it was setting it. You have to take your eye out of the viewfinder and look at the top of the camera to set the shutter dial, which seems cumbersome. Once metered, though, if light conditions don't change, you can shoot without further consideration. Don't forget to set the film speed on the dial on the top left side of the camera. That tells the meter what film you're using so it adjusts exposure correctly. The Sunny 16 rule basically says 1/ASA at f:16, so with ASA 200 film, you'd want 1/200. The closest the camera has is probably 1/250, but if it's not sunny, you'll be guessing until you've had some experience exposing for dimmer conditions, like cloudy, heavy overcast, or dusk.
