The Sunny 16 Rule can be used when a light meter is not available. Instead of wasting film trying to guess your exposure, you can use this rule. On a sunny day with no clouds overhead, set your aperture to f/16. Your shutter speed is then set to the ISO film speed of the film you’re using. This will leave you with a nice, even exposure.

It is rare that your shutter speed will match the ISO film speed perfect. For instance, there is no shutter speed 100 for 100 ISO film. The Sunny 16 rule then dictates to use the next highest shutter speed above the ISO film speed. So for speed 100 you would use shutter speed 1/125. It’s much easier to remember shutter speed equals ISO film speed, but always remember the shutter speed will likely not match.

On a perfect, clear, sunny day, f/16 is to be used. Days that aren’t clear and sunny can still use the Sunny 16 rule with some minor changes. Extremely bright days with distinct shadows use f/22. Hazy sun and soft shadows use f/11, cloudly days with barely visible shadows use f/8, and overcast days with no shadows use f/5.6. The same shutter speed rule applies. In our example of using ISO film speed 100, the shutter speed will always be 1/125, regardless of the aperture used.

Using yourself as the subject in photography can be difficult. For starters, you have to manage to be the photographer and the subject, which requires some skill and guess work to do it just right. One of the more difficult objectives as the photographer is composing your shot and ensuring that your subject, you, will be within the composition and in focus. It is often difficult to do this because you don’t have a point of reference. This can easily be fixed by placing an object where you will sit, or will your face will be. From behind the camera, you will have something to focus on and a way to compose the image.

As the subject, this becomes difficult because you don’t have a photographer looking at you to ensure you are in the proper position, posing correctly, making the right face, etc. So as the photographer, you must already have a clear idea of how you will pose and how you will look before the shot is taken. Digital photographers have the opportunity to take thousands of images on the spot, but film photographers will not be so lucky.

There are two ways for you to pose in front of the camera and snap the photograph. First, you can use your camera’s self-timer, if available. This will give you about 10 seconds to get from behind the camera and into position. This works well if your position is easy to get to and settle within that time frame. Most self-timers also have a system to blink a light faster and faster as time winds down, giving you some notice of when the shutter is released.

The second way is getting a long cable release cord. This will allow you to get as far from the camera as the cord stretches and take a photograph from positions that would’ve taken too long with a self-timer. Plus, there is no need to wait or hold still as you have complete control over when the photo is taken. The major downfall with cable releases is that you can only get as far as the cable reaches and you’ll often see the cable in the shot. Cables can be hidden in many instances or made to look like part of the shot, but sometimes you’ll always be able to tell it’s a cable release.

Which ever option you choose is up to you. But always make sure to keep photographing as you learn with experience. Being the photographer and model is no simple task.

Printing in the darkroom can be a fairly complicated process, using countless techniques to obtain the perfect print. But most prints start with a very simplified process and then move onto additional help from dodging and burning, filters, dust removal, or other techniques.

For the start of most prints, determining the aperture of the enlarger is half the battle. Open the aperture too much and your print may end up too dark, close the aperture too much and you’ll have light prints or prints that take 5 minutes to expose. The aperture depends on the density of your negative, that is to say, how much light or dark the negative is. A light negative requires less light while a dark negative requires more light - so you can open or close the aperture as needed.

For most prints, set the aperture to the most closed position possible. You’ll know the aperture is closed because the light will not be as bright. From the closed position, open the aperture 2 stops (add more light) and work from there.

From here you’ll want to make what is known as a test strip. You can use an entire piece of photographic paper or just half of it, but it should be a substantial size as you’ll need to judge differences between exposure areas. Place the paper in the easel. Use an object that completely blocks light and cover the majority of the paper, leaving only a sliver to expose. Expose that piece for 2 seconds, then move your light blocker and uncover more paper and expose for another 2 seconds. You’ll want to do this 6 or 7 times to get 6 or 7 exposures. After development, you’ll be left with a strip with exposure times ranging from 2 seconds to 14 seconds or more depending on how many exposures you made. Then, judge which time gives you the best blacks without losing details and which spot gives you the best whites without bright spots. Expose a full piece of paper for that amount of time you decided on and - viola!

After making this first print, you can decide if you need to go back and make any changes to contrast, eliminate spots, burn in areas, or more.

In the darkroom, there are a few key techniques to obtain the perfect image. Aside from ensuring the negative is clean, adjusting the aperture of the enlarger, and using filters to increase or decrease contrast - the techniques known as dodging and burning are essential. In layman’s terms, dodging is a process to lighten dark spots on a print and burning is a process to darken spots on a print.

When printing a negative, you may notice small areas of the bring that are too bright or too dark compared to the even tones of the rest of the image. This may include bright skies that appear washed out or dark shadows that leave little or no detail. Burning or dodging can help fix these trouble spots without getting into extremely complex processes.

If a spot is too dark and details are lost, dodging is the option for you. What you will need to do is block light from hitting that spot for a few seconds to eliminate the exposure and lighten that area. Dodging can be done with any object that has some level of opacity from thin sheets to cardboard that can be cut to custom forms or pre-made dodging tools. For a second or more during exposure to your photographic paper, block the light of the trouble area with your dodging tool. If you simply cover the spot you will an outline of the tool printed on the paper. Therefore, it is imperative that you slightly shake the tool to prevent this from happening.

If the spot is too light, you may need to use the burning process. Burning works exactly the same as dodging, except that you allow more light to a spot. For burning, you add time to the exposure amount of your paper and block everything you do not wish to change so that only the trouble spot is exposed. The additional time will darken the spot to create a more even tone. Again, it is imperative that you slightly shake the light-blocking tool to prevent any noticeable outlines.

Ever run into unfamiliar terms that people expect you to know without much explanation? Of course you have. But at Film Photography Guide, the only goal is to create the ultimate guide to film photography that’s easy to understand so that you can apply the information to working knowledge of photography. So here comes the Glossary, an A-Z database that attempts to explain various terms you may encounter in the world of photography. And while everything at this site is being updated constantly to provide new and useful information, the same applies to the Glossary. It will undergo constant updates to ensure that the information you need to know is made available.

So if there’s ever a term you come across that just doesn’t make sense to you, check out the Glossary as chances are, you’ll find it there.

Adobe Photoshop has the ability to import and use many file formats, with support to open nearly all Adobe-related image files, including vector images. Using simple commands from the menu, you can click “File” and then either “Open” or “Import.” Use “Open” when you want to work with an image or vector file and “Import” for more complicated matters.

The “Import” menu has a sub-menu that allows you to do various things including opening frames of a movie clip, importing images directly from a digital camera without transfering them to your hard drive, and opening the scanner menu to scan film negatives or prints. Depending on your camera or scanner model, the “Import” menu will read differently. For instance, Epson scanners will show as “Epson (scanner type and model)” whereas other scanners may show as “Twain 32.” The name depends on individual models and the software they are packaged with.

When using your scanner, Photoshop will automatically bring up your scanner’s software to scan the film or image. From your scanner menu, choose the DPI you wish to scan your film or print. Remember that when you scan small film you need to scan at a high resolution to be able to make a larger print, for 35mm film 2400 dpi will make a good size print and for medium format 1200 dpi will suffice. Some scanners also offer the ability for you to choose your output size and the scanner will automatically do the work for you.

You may also choose for the scanner to automatically balance the exposure, colors, remove dust, and more - but it would be advised that you take care of these steps in Photoshop as it is more accurate and controlled. When scanned, your image will automatically import into Photoshop where it can be saved.

Adobe Photoshop is widely considered the ultimate program for photo editing and manipulation and there is nearly no limit to what it can do. You can use the program to edit digital photographs or scanned film to achieve perfect exposure, colors, tonal balance, and even clean up little bits of dust or digital noise. There is also a newer program called Adobe Lightroom, which is essentially an easy-to-use version of Photoshop designed for digital photographers who need to process a lot of images quickly - although it doesn’t come close to the capabilities of Photoshop.

Many digital artists also use Photoshop as a tool to heavily manipulate photographs. The line between photography and digital art draws very thin when you begin to heavily manipulate the image(s). While Photoshop allows you to do things that would be extremely difficult in the darkroom, you should refrain from going overboard with it.

Just as compositional elements are important to photography, technique is also important in digital photography. Manipulations must be subtle so that the viewer does not realize the image has been tampered with. Simply put, photographers should use Photoshop as a digital darkroom and not much more - unless your intent is to create digital art.

Overall, Photoshop is an amazing program that can do wonders for photographers. But to those who use it, consider this advice: because the line between photography and digital art wears thin, either use subtle manipulation and digital techinques or use these techniques to a complete and full extent. If you end somewhere in the middle, no one will know what to think and you will not be seen as a photographer and not quite be a digital artist. In the Photoshop world, it’s all or nothing.

One of the major rules of composition in photography is called the Rule of Thirds. The rule of thirds states that before you capture the subject, you should consider how the composition will look when split into thirds vertically and horizontally. It has been noted in studies that the point of intersection for these thirds is typically the first place the eye travels when viewing an image. So separating the image into thirds creates a natural compositional element.

As with most rules of composition and photography, they are meant to be broken. However, before you break these rules you should have a clear understanding of why you are breaking the rules and how that will ultimately impact the viewers experience with the photograph.

Take this example of two owls. The rules of thirds lines have already been applied so that you can see exactly how it works. As you can see, both owls sit on opposite ends of the vertical thirds with space between them and body and head separated by horizontal thirds. Not only does this composition allow you to see, in full, both owls, but it also helps to give a clear sense of depth using the shallow depth of field technique.

Now imagine that a photo was taken of the owl on the left, except that owl was in the middle of the frame. It makes you realize just how much impact the rule of thirds can make.

Motion photography is quite possibly one of the most popular techniques used in digital or film photography. And while most everyone is familiar with blur motion, frozen motion, or panning photography techniques, there is an additional technique that can create an illusion of motion - multiple exposure.

Multiple exposure is simply exposing the same frame multiple times. As such, you can capture a series of movements that a subject makes. For instance, if someone is jumping hurdles, you can capture different actions of the jump on the same negative. Alternatively, you can also capture different shots and put them together digitally or in the darkroom.

For this to work properly, your camera must be placed on a tripod to ensure the camera does not move. If the camera moves position, the background will end up blurry from all the movement. Depending on the speed of the

moving object, it may also require a camera that can automatically release the shutter in rapid succession. If you

plan to take individual images and put them together in the post-processing period, you will also need a film

camera that automatically advances the next frame.

In this image, the image was captured at different intervals to show transition in the moon and the illusion of movement.

Whether digital or classic film camera, the single-lens reflex (SLR) camera is one of the simplest cameras to use and offers an extreme flexibility for advanced users or beginners to photography. Single-lens reflex derives from a camera that uses a mirror system built in the camera that permits the user to see exactly what will be captured by the film or digital system. This is of great significance because most other camera systems (without digital backs) do not permit you to view exactly what will be captured. As such, these other systems may reveal a different image other than the one you attempted to capture if you don’t compensate correctly.

In the SLR camera system, a mirror sits behind the camera lens at a 45-degree angle with the film or digital input resting behind the mirror, blocked from light. The mirror bounces the image through the camera lens and out the viewfinder for the photographer to see the image. Once the shutter is released, that mirror flips up for the duration of time the shutter speed was set and flips down when completed. Obviously, once the mirror flips up the film or digital input is exposed and an image is produced.

The SLR camera system is commonly seen in 35mm cameras, but is also available in medium format cameras. The medium format SLR is generally much more expensive than the 35mm counterpart but is preferred by many professionals because of the larger film size.

SLR cameras also have the unique feature of truly interchangeable lenses. Because the mirror inside the camera hides film from light, you can change lenses even when a roll of film is in the back of the camera. Most SLR cameras also have built-in light meters to measure light for a good exposure, eliminating the need for additional handheld light meters.

Whether you’re a professional or beginner to photography, the single-lens reflex camera should be your first camera type. After mastering various photography techniques you can move onto other systems that challenge the way you think about your shots.