f/8 and be there.

[life_unexamined]

"Sunny 16" is (in addition to being the title of a Ben Folds (I think) EP (I think)) a photographer's rule of thumb for setting exposure values without metering. I suppose it's more accurate to say it's a mnemonic for the rule of thumb

Comments

[greg_kennedy]

Thanks for the write-up. I think it's important to strike a balance between the two methodologies - stage a lot of shots with the "correct" exposure and technical perfection, and then take a lot of shots with f/8. Eventually your experience in both will will merge together into a sort of instinct about how to set up your shot automatically. But then I'm more of a 'balance in everything' kind of guy.

I added you as a contact on Flickr by the way. You take some great shots!

[life_unexamined]

Thanks ... I take full advantage of the "it's digital, take lots and lots of shots and only ever show anyone the ones that are OK" paradigm.

I'm not much for staged shots, except as a way to experiment with effects ... dof, for example. Part of that is that my favorite subjects are candid faces. Of course, for that kind of thing (portraiture) I know I want less dof any way, so I usually go with a much wider aperture.

[life_unexamined]

tl;dr