I have 354,798 images in my Lightroom catalog. Out of that I a quick survey shows that I have less than 1000 that follow the sunny 16 rule.

The Sunny 16 rule is just a guideline to get you close enough that the exposure latitude of the film would allow you to pull something from the negative. It wasn't the be all and end all of exposure. You could also go with the F8 and be there as a much more important rule to follow. If you are not in the right spot at the right time, then you have nothing. What happens when you are in manual and your subject moves from shade to bright sun. While you are sitting there fiddling with the knobs, I've got the shot because I'm leaving the technical side of the equation to the camera so that I can concentrate on the aesthetics - that's the stuff that the camera (at least not yet) cannot do. The camera cannot control the composition, they cannot control catching the peak action, there are lots of things that the camera cannot do, that needs the eye of the photographer, but if you are so busy fiddling with knobs you don't have time for the rest of it. And if you do manage to catch it - its not skill, its just dumb blind luck.

That is just so much bunk. It doesn't matter what mode you are using. Auto, Shutter, Aperture, or manual. They will all give you the same readings. It's knowing how the meter works that is important, not what mode you decide to meter in. Saying that manual gives you more control or is better is just egotistical male bovine excrement.

by what comment?

I would say anybody that has bought into the urban myth that manual is somehow magical and gives you more control. That is a line that started only in the digital age, and my guess is that it came from those that discovered that there is great money to be made in teaching photography to those that know less than they do. The mode that you use is irrelevant, as somebody has already pointed out - if all you do is go with what the meter says - then you may as well be shooting in program or full auto.

I started as some others here with view cameras, hand held spot meters, and Ansel Adams zone exposure system, and was photographing in manual for a full 20 years before Canon introduced the AE-1. So I do know how to use manual exposure, and push/pull exposure and development to bring out the tones in a black and white sheet film negative. But that was your starting point - and from there the rest was done in the darkroom. But the process translates poorly to roll film, and while I can see the potential for applying it to digital, I don't believe that most that use manual are talking about that level of control.

What is important to know, isn't what mode to use, but how camera meters work in general and more specifically how the meter in your camera works because every single camera is just a little different. I don't mean between brands or models, I mean between the exact same brand and model. For example my D300 consistently over exposures by 1/3 stop when compared to my d200. But I can go to the menu and put in a permanent override on that bias. Back in the day of film, we would buy film in large batches so we could take and test the response of that batch of film and then apply that compensation to every roll or sheet of film in that batch. Now there was no exposure compensation adjustment on the camera or the meter, so you just changed the ASA setting that you used for the batch of film. The box might say it was 100 ASA but after testing you would decide that 80 ASA was a better setting, or you might decide that 125 ASA was a better match. So that is what you would set your meter to for that batch of film.

In todays cameras - they are really more like powerful computers - and just like a computer, they are faster and more accurate in determining a proper exposure, because they have a database of lighting patterns that are programed into the meter, so not only do they meter the light, but they evaluate the entire lighting pattern against that library. You don't get that comparison happening in the manual settings. So you need years of experience under all sorts of lighting conditions to make that same comparison and come to an educated guess as to what would be a better exposure. But in the time that you are doing that - the light has changed, the subject has moved, or a whole world of other conditions that can effect exposure has happened, and you miss the shot. On top of which - today's cameras are just not designed for manual metering. Yes it's there, but take a look through an old film camera and see how bright and full that viewfinder is - and how easy it is to see the meter. Today's digital cameras - viewfinders are dim even with the fastest lens, and the settings are not easy to see or to read.

I am not a fan of shutter priority, especially with slower lens, because it does lead to an awful lot of underexposed images because many have a habit of setting the shutter speed too high for the light conditions.

I do prefer aperture priority because you want a fast shutter speed just open you lens as wide as it will go, and if that isn't fast enough then up the ISO. If you want depth of field, just close your lens down to where you want it. If I am photographing people, then I set +1 exposure compensation and meter on the face in spot metering mode. Which is also my preferred setting. Unless I am in the studio with studio strobes, you will find my camera set to aperture preferred, spot metering.

All of that is based on photographing for newspapers for nearly 40 years and having to come back with the shot. The closer I have it in camera, the less work I have to do to the image before it hits the press. Most of my stuff gets imported into Lightroom through a preset that I designed and it's good to go with little to no tweaking and it goes out through an export present that gives the prepress department what they need. I don't remember the last time I used Photoshop for anything but it's before any of the CC versions, and I think probably going back to 3.

My way of thinking, unless strobes are involved, shooting in manual is like running the 100 yard dash with your shoe laces tied together. Yeah you can do it, but you are not going to win any prizes.

On my D300 and my D200, in auto ISO, and manual mode, the Exposure compensation button changes nothing but the zero point for the exposure reading. It is still up to you to make any manual adjustments you want to do that. If your camera meter is consistently out, you can, at least on the D300 and D200, adjust the exposure adjustment internally, kind of like back in the days of film, if your meter was consistently out you would adjust the ISO to compensate for that bias in the exposure, and you would still use the +- button to deal with particular situations.

But really outside of consistent meter bias, there is no need to use the exposure compensation in manual mode. If you are metering something white like a weddig dress, you just increase the exposure by two stops by either changing the shutter speed, or the aperture. Or if you are metering something dark, then you do the opposite and decrease the exposure by two stops.

Remember camera meters are calibrated to read 18% grey as the correct exposure, so if your scene is dark, you close down the lens to turn that black from the grey that the camera will tell you to the black that you want. Same with the white, it is going to underexpose the white because it wants it to be grey, so you open up two stops. Or you can go to spot metering, meter off a skin tone and then open up just one stop.

Been in newspapers since 1982 - Press Pass - mostly not needed except for certain events. For those events the pass will be issued by the organization that is hosting the event. As for those thinking that community newspapers don't have the juice. I have photographed presidents, prime ministers, premiers, royalty, NHL, Olympics, concerts, and an uncountable number of other events, news stories etc. all for community newspapers. Sometimes you will get little organizations that think they are important that won't let you on site - but for the most part, identifying yourself as a photographer for X publication is all that it takes to gain entry.