After buying the old Leica a few weeks ago, I ran into a “big” problem…  Being able to work with the better DSLR’s for years, my “thinking” of photography rules went down, way down!  As all DSLR’s are all equipped with great light meters, in studio there is my Minolta meter and now with my Leica there is… nothing!  Ok, there was the Leica Meter MC supplied with the camera, but I took it off and forced myself to go “thinking” again… Life can be easy, but when it becomes too easy, no good!

So I had to go out and check the possibilities of light metering without any help of meters.  And yes, there is one fantastic rule: Sunny 16!

It’s quite easy to work with and the best of all: it works!  That is, in the given circumstances…  you won’t be able to use it in all light-conditions possible…

A small explanation:

I made myself a small card with all the necessary info on it, just 5 cm by 2 cm!  Ain’t that something

The basic principle of the sunny 16 is: On a sunny day, set you aperture (f-value) to 16 and your shutter speed to same number as your ISO film speed…  that’s it!

For example:

• sunny day:  f/16     –     ISO = 200     –     shutter speed has to be 1/200 (or 250 if your camera doesn’t know 200)
• sunny day:  f/16     –     ISO = 400     –     shutter speed has to be 1/400 (or 500 if your camera doesn’t know 400)

From there on, you can go playing around with your f-values and shutter speeds, to become the image you like!  When there’s no sun, just have a look at the other values on the small card I made. In the early days of photography, this worked.  And as today’s modern digital photography is based on the same techniques…  it will work to!

I suggest you try it out…and you’ll see, it does the trick!!

Good luck and let me know your experiences!