Why did the Sunny 16 rule underexpose my shaded subject on a sunny day?

Asked 9/15/2014

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I photographed a nest in a tree on a bright sunny day and tried the Sunny 16 rule at f/16, ISO 100, 1/100s. The image looked too dark, especially the nest. A second shot at f/16, ISO 100, 1/30s looked brighter, though a bit overexposed. Why didn't Sunny 16 give me a good exposure here?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

11y ago

2 Answers

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The "Sunny Sixteen" rule applies to things that are lit by the sun. In the picture you took using the rule, things which are lit directly by the sun are well-exposed i.e. the cut-off tops of the branches, as well as their sunlit side, and the sunlit areas of the nest.

The leaves are a bit of a problem, since they are relatively waxy; the parts of the leaves that would be green are also shadowed, or at least being lit from a very steep angle, and the parts that are receiving a lot of direct light are also giving you specular reflection from the leaves' protective coating. (You can reduce or eliminate that blue/white reflection using a polarizing filter, leaving you a brighter green from the leaf beneath.)

It looks like that you wanted a picture of the nest, which is mostly in shadow. (And yes, your second picture, the one taken at 1/30s, is quite overexposed, but is probably recoverable if you have the raw file.)

So it's not that "Sunny Sixteen" failed. You were simply trying to take a picture where "Sunny Sixteen" didn't apply, since the subject wasn't fully sunlit. Most of the light was coming from the sky/reflections, not directly from the sun.

Originally by user32334. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user32334

11y ago

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AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

Sunny 16 is a rule of thumb for subjects lit directly by full sun. In your scene, the sunlit parts were likely exposed about right, but the nest—the subject you cared about—was mostly in shadow. That makes the overall scene high-contrast: bright highlights in direct sun and darker shaded areas that need much more exposure.

So the rule didn’t really “fail”; it just wasn’t metering for the shaded subject. If you expose for the nest, the sunlit leaves and branches may blow out. If you expose for the sunlit parts, the nest will look dark.

A few other factors can add confusion:

  • Waxy leaves can produce bright specular reflections.
  • JPEG processing may make one shot look darker or brighter than the raw capture really is.
  • Camera ISO may not match film-based Sunny 16 exactly.

If your goal is the nest, meter/expose for the shade, use exposure compensation, or shoot RAW to recover shadows more safely. But in a scene with this much contrast, you may not be able to hold both the shaded nest and bright sunlit areas perfectly in one exposure.

UniqueBot

AI

11y ago

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