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Entire roll of Tri-x shot completely without a light meter, using the sunny 16 rule (with sample photos)

Film, Theory

I just finished my first roll of tri-x 400, shot completely without a light meter. I’ve been thinking about trying it for a long time. I got some extra motivation after a battery replacement for my Olympus OM-1. The new battery gives higher reading than it should. I don’t know just yet exactly why, but I figured since it’s a bit off right now, I might as well go completely without it until figure it out and fix it.

My hypothesis was that shooting without a meter would be a bit faster, because you basically skip the step of checking the meter and save a fraction of a second by doing that. After this experiment, I can say that my hunch was actually pretty spot on. Because I didn’t spend any time checking the needle, I was able to keep my eye solely on the subject. It may not sound like much, but the extra fraction of a second, felt significant.

It is now the brightest time of the year so I had no trouble of following the very basic form of sunny 16 rule. (If you’re not heard of it, here’s the wikipedia article.) I simply kept aperture at f16 when there was full sunlight and f11 on slight overcast, f8 when it started to look a bit more cloudy and f5.6 when it went totally cloudy.

I found that keeping an eye on the shadows, was the most efficient way of determining the aperture. I usually look at the shadows of another person, lamp post etc. There are basically four aperture settings to choose from, when sunny-sixteeing and it was really much easier than expected. All you need to do is to memorise the rule (and perhaps some of it’s variations) and be mindful of the lighting conditions — as you should anyways.

F16 is of course no-brainer because you simply choose that when there’s absolutely no clouds and basically as bright as it can get. In terms of shadows, on full sunlight the edges of the shadows are very crisp with no blur. F16 shadows are also very distinct.

F11 can be determined from the shadows when the edges of the shadow are not that crisp and there is somewhat of a blur around their edges. F11 shadows are still quite distinct, but not as clear as on f16 shadows — it kinds starts to blend into the areas where the sunlight is hitting directly.

On f8 there is a significant amount of blur around the edges and the shadow isn’t very distinct at all. It starts to blend into the ground. Weaker light doesn’t cast a very strong shadow at all.

At f5.6 due to heavy overcast, there are basically no cast shadows at all, because the they are completely merged to the landscape and disappeared.

For this first exciting experiment, I did not get any bad exposures! Very surprising results. I was sure to mess half of the photos up. I also learned just how forgiving Tri-x is. It has such an amazing latitude that I feel very confident continuing this endeavour. Being off by a stop really doesn’t seem to do no harm. Choosing f8 instead of f11 will not mess up the photo.

For this roll I pushed my Tri-x 400 one stop to 800. All the sunny 16 shots are therefore shot at 1/1000 shutter speed. I used mainly my 50mm f1.8 lens and 28mm f3.5 for few shots. My camera of choice was, as always, Olympus OM-1.

Here is also my previous post on shooting without a meter.

Have a look at the shadows that the people in the photo are casting. They are distinct and no blur on the edges. F16 it is then.
Not quite sunny 16 rule, but shot without a meter none the less, based on educated guess. Wide open at f3.5 and 1/15.
Shot wide open at f1.8 indoors without a meter. Shutter speed estimated to be something like 1/30.
Shot at f16. Take a look again at the shadow details. They are distinct and crisp, which means f16 is a good bet.
You can see that the skies are cloudy. If memory serves, this was probably shot at f11 or f8. I can’t remember whether I tried to compensate for the backlight by opening up the aperture one additional stop. No cast shadows in this photo but you can see looking the boy’s clothes that the shadowing looks creamy and not crisp at all.
Clear case of f16. Super distinct cast shadows with hard edges.
Most likely shot at f8 or perhaps f11.
F16 shot.
Another clear f16 case.
Ah, look at this — no shadows cast! You can barely even see the shadows and they are super blurry. Almost blending into the landscape, which means a rather heavy overcast — f5.6 it is then.
Most likely shot at f5.6 or f8. Not much detectable shadows.

Something else to read perhaps?