Digital Home Thoughts: Twelve Essential Photographic Rules

"From Sunny 16 to Moony 11, 8, and 5.6, these facts, formulas, and photographic rules can get you out of a jam and help you get good shots when nothing else will. What happens when your systems go belly-up, when all of that cutting-edge technology dies and you must rely on (gasp!) your own knowledge? It pays to have these basics in your head. They can get you out of a jam and help you get good shots when nothing else will. 1. Sunny 16 Rule - The basic exposure for an average scene taken on a bright, sunny day is f/16 at a shutter speed equivalent to one over the ISO setting—that is, f/16 at 1/100 sec at ISO 100. From this you can interpolate, and try f/22 at the beach, f/11 on a cloudy-bright day, etc."

The good news is that this article does something most other photography-tips articles avoid -- giving specific camera settings for extremely broad sets of scenarios. But remember to take these more as guidelines than rules. It is not like I am disputing the recommendations given by the authors of this article, it's just that you can't really have strict rules in photography (well you can, but you know what I mean). It is good though to have some calculations ready just in case you don't want to do a bunch of trial shots before finding the right set of options to pick. This way you can start closer to the optimal settings and then all you have to do is fine tune to the options that you are looking for.