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Harsh lighting: what would you have done?
I get an epic FAIL on rule #1: LEAVE FLASH IN BAG (even when you think you won't need it).
Ooops.
However, never one to be dissuaded, I decided to shoot in the harsh sunlight anyway :rolleyes
It was ca 5pm so at least it was pretty light and the sun wasn't right overhead, but still pretty high contrast.
Question 1: How do you get a decent exposure with fill flash in sun when you also want to shoot wide open for bg blur purposes? I tried using a tiny burst of the popup flash to see if it would help, but it just overexposed it - these were already ~1/3200 at iso 100 so not really anywhere to go without stopping down... which I didn't want to do (and presumably this would have been a problem with my external flash too)
Question 2: how could I have better situated the subject in this kind of situation? I couldn't figure out whether it was better to try and use the sun as a backlight and use the spot meter (since I didn't have flash) to try and get a decent exposure on face, or try and move somewhere on the other side. In the end, this particular comp won me over because I just love the old-fashioned streetlamp in the background.
Question 3: Blurmore once said that he found the 85 1.8 made him a better photographer because you have to work to get the best from it. Anybody know how to achieve that (or what specifically he meant?) Sometimes I LOVE the results from it which are incredibly sharp but with that sparkle of light that it gets, and others it just seems soft and I don't know WHY. I don't think it's back/front focusing because it generally affects the whole image rather than shifting the focus point somewhere I don't expect - it almost seems that depending on the light conditions its sharpnesss varies.... :dunno :scratch
Anyway, dodging/burning, BW and Lomo processing helps these, but clearly they're still way too contrasty. What would you all have done without a flash or reflector?
There were others in the series, but this demonstrates the sitch pretty well:
1 SOOC
2 Processed
3 BW
4 Lomo 1
5 Lomo 2
Btw, the occasion was my daughter receiving an achievement award from Prestigious Local Institution - she only let me take these under protest today, but I hope she'll be happy in years to come that I marked the occasion (kitty ears and all :rofl) We're very proud of her :lust
Ooops.
However, never one to be dissuaded, I decided to shoot in the harsh sunlight anyway :rolleyes
It was ca 5pm so at least it was pretty light and the sun wasn't right overhead, but still pretty high contrast.Question 1: How do you get a decent exposure with fill flash in sun when you also want to shoot wide open for bg blur purposes? I tried using a tiny burst of the popup flash to see if it would help, but it just overexposed it - these were already ~1/3200 at iso 100 so not really anywhere to go without stopping down... which I didn't want to do (and presumably this would have been a problem with my external flash too)
Question 2: how could I have better situated the subject in this kind of situation? I couldn't figure out whether it was better to try and use the sun as a backlight and use the spot meter (since I didn't have flash) to try and get a decent exposure on face, or try and move somewhere on the other side. In the end, this particular comp won me over because I just love the old-fashioned streetlamp in the background.
Question 3: Blurmore once said that he found the 85 1.8 made him a better photographer because you have to work to get the best from it. Anybody know how to achieve that (or what specifically he meant?) Sometimes I LOVE the results from it which are incredibly sharp but with that sparkle of light that it gets, and others it just seems soft and I don't know WHY. I don't think it's back/front focusing because it generally affects the whole image rather than shifting the focus point somewhere I don't expect - it almost seems that depending on the light conditions its sharpnesss varies.... :dunno :scratch
Anyway, dodging/burning, BW and Lomo processing helps these, but clearly they're still way too contrasty. What would you all have done without a flash or reflector?
There were others in the series, but this demonstrates the sitch pretty well:
1 SOOC
2 Processed
3 BW
4 Lomo 1
5 Lomo 2
Btw, the occasion was my daughter receiving an achievement award from Prestigious Local Institution - she only let me take these under protest today, but I hope she'll be happy in years to come that I marked the occasion (kitty ears and all :rofl) We're very proud of her :lust
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That said, I'm looking forward to hearing some expert advice on how to fix this in camera, before post. When this type of thing happens to me (all the time, but for me, it's by accident because I don't know better---not because I've made a conscious decision to let one thing go for the effect of another, DOF in this case . . . with which I agree with you, stopping down would have lost the beautiful effect), I use Scott Kelby's technique to fake a fill flash---sometimes it works, sometimes not, but when I have a great picture I really want to save, I try it. It might work on this because her face and her arms are all in the same shadow and the work wouldn't be as obvious.
In Photoshop Elements (what I use, so you have to fake a layer mask) make a duplicate layer of the background, and go to levels and slide them until the subject looks properly exposed (the rest will be really blown out, but that's okay.) Create a blank layer, put it between your two photos. Group the top (overblown) layer to the empty layer, and take a soft lower-opacity black brush and paint in the empty layer. There are a bunch of ways to do this, esp. in PSCS, where you can create real layer masks and such.
I know you were looking for a technique, so I apologize if this is worthless information! But I was hoping I could help.
Sarah
www.CottageInk.smugmug.com
NIKON D700
Replies in bold, above.
Hope that helps...
The answer to prevent overexposure while using large apertures in bright conditions with flash in ETTL is of course high speed synch mode. Unfortunately, it is unavailable with the pop-up flash. Get yourself a little sling type duffle to keep it in without carrying the whole kit.
I had similar conditions Saturday morning. My couple wanted photos taken at the ruins and grounds of a long ago burned down plantation home about an hours drive from here. They charge $100 to allow photo/portrait sessions on the grounds. We arrived when they opened at 9am......and unfortunately they close at 5pm. This time of year those hours miss good light by a couple hours either way. Without any structures of any type there wasn't a piece of shade to be found that would accomodate a couple...and the sun was too high by then to consider blocking it. I had to cancel the shoot until that afternoon, and scratched the location save for cloudy days. We wound up shooting that evening here in town with great results.
Luckily, I was able to look around the place before we paid, and saved them a hundred bucks.
That is a beautiful shot.....in any of it's iterations!
Where's the Lomo look coming from?
Jeff
-Need help with Dgrin?; Wedding Photography Resources
-My Website - Blog - Tips for Senior Portraiture
If I'm shooting in bright conditions, and can't get decent shade, I tend put the sun behind the subject and use my flash off camera on a stand.
The only open shade was that dappled light streaming through the trees. Luckily I offered one of my mentees for the Leukemia Society's Team-in-Training a donation of $50 to help me out. She climbed a Crepe Myrtle with a 42" scrim to block some of the light. Best money I ever donated. Anyway.. if you can get them to change the time, by all means definitely do it - it will make your life easier but if not, find or make some open shade. The most beautiful of locations fall completely dead and lifeless in open sunlight and the shadows...well, you already know that story....
fitw... I love #2. I can see the squint from the sunlight but what a great shot.
My Images | My Lessons Learned and Other Adventures
Thanks! Very useful processing tip - I do something similar with a black layer mask and brightness/contrast layer, effectively painting it where I want it. On this occasion I used the LR brush, which I guess is performing a similar task.
And "expert" advice???!!?? HHHAAAA!!! Wow - you just made my day. I'm getting there (slowly) but still feel like Da N00b - and it's only thanks to the generosity and patience of folks in here guiding me along that I've come as far as I have
Thanks Randy. I'll remember HSS next time I have the 430ex on the camera (moot point today, of course, since I left the blasted thing at home) - haven't used it before and hadn't fully realised its application (still wrapping my head around the extra features of the 430ex vis-a-vis my 420), so time to start playing with that.
As for the lens - I wish I could put my finger on it. I think it may just be the softness of 1.8 and 2.0; I notice that it sharpens up dramatically at 2.3 and up, and perhaps I start noticing it more when I deep crop. I'll try to think of a more logical way of testing it
Thanks Jeff - I was thinking about you as soon as I thought of trying out this "railing shot"!!!
The lomos are both LR presets I have - the green one is "Matt's Lomo" and the other one is one of two (lomo and lomo max) that I found somewhere. They were both free downloads, although I can't for the life of me remember where they're from.
Yeah, I wound up with it sorta kinda behind her. I'm afraid I let comp win over lighting since looking at it now i realise if I'd backed her up then more of her would have been in even sun rather than the shadowed railing, but I do like that background look.....
Thanks!
I do hope you got a shot of your intrepid assistant and the setup?
Thanks for the kind words. I wish I'd had the flash with me to finish the job off properly, but regardless of the technical flaws I'm still very happy to have the shot
That lens is incredible at F4.....and still great wider open.
It may not be the lens at all but just another victim of the lighting conditions. Remember that the focus points need to be placed over an area with reasonable contrast. Often, I have found with backlit subjects, that what I am faced with doesn't quite offer enough contrast for a precision auto focus. You could have possible switched focus points, and grabbed a solid lock either at her feet, or at her shoulder area ...in those spots that are out of the shade. Had you been within range, the STE2...alone.....may have been a help.
Auto focus is much better at doing its task than I am, but even so...it has some limitations.
Jeff
-Need help with Dgrin?; Wedding Photography Resources
-My Website - Blog - Tips for Senior Portraiture
Its a great shot....and a lovely composition. Print that sucker!:D
Jeff
-Need help with Dgrin?; Wedding Photography Resources
-My Website - Blog - Tips for Senior Portraiture
That's my feeling about it, but until you posted this, I had no clue WHY that could be the case
AHA! This may well be on to something. I was on center dot and recomposing since I don't trust myself any other way at apertures below about 4.0 (this was 2.0). I was aiming for her eye, but I shoot without my glasses (in this case my sunglasses) and given how bright it was I was essentially flying blind and could easily have missed. Now, I don't see an alternative point of sharper focus in the shot unless it's somewhere in her hair and thus not that noticeable, but if the light tricks the AF t into slightly mis-adjusting itself, that would be consistent with the occasional softness I'm seeing. If it were all the time, I'd blame the AF on the lens itself, but it's not that consistent...............
A big
I just saw this post, and I know EXACTLY where that fence is.
I think you did a good job, the light is pretty flat, and makes for a good full length portrait. You are never going to get the perfect three dimensional directional light in full overhead sun unless you A. create shade with a reflector or B. Meter a lot under the ambient light then push a LOT of fill flash. Neither are easy. For a portrait like this, if you don't have racoon eyes, or mottled shadows, I think you are doing well. What I meant by the 85 f1.8 making you a better photographer is ALL about using and mastering those off center focal points. To be totally honest with you I VERY rarely use the 85 f1.8 at f1.8 at f1.8 even the sharp copies on pro bodies are art, almost unacceptably sharp at center of the frame, and utterly obliterated at the edges. For a composition like you have using the correct focus point (on a 40D, 30D, 20D) the upper right corner (depending on how you hold your camera), I wouldn't use an aperture larger than f2.5 because she is getting toward the fringes where the lens sharpens. The place you will REALLY see it getting soft is shooting at f1.8-f2.8 and having the center focus point active right on her belly. The DOF is so thin here that her belly will be in focus and her head out, THAT is why the lens will make you a better photographer. Youd have to stop down to f4-f5.6 at this distance to have it sharp on her face if the focus was on the belly. The LITTLE but of mottling you have on her face from the fence, I'm pretty sure you could clone or masked curves layer it out (or in lightroom 2 use the selective adjustment tool). In this particular case, I'm not sure having a flash would have done much from you at this distance, off camera? thats a different story and skillset altogether. It a cute shot, and you did a good job, I like the first processed one the best, the lomo doesn't do much for me in this shot.
Actually Rutt this is in the shadow of a BIG tower, then fence is around the tower. I don't think the light is reflecting from the building, but cutting in around the tower, pretty sure the tower is creating the shade here. But I agree that its always best to look whats going on with a back light when you are shooting natural light.
We were referring to the OP's picture.
I was too...
Blurmore's exactly right - the location is the fence around a tall monument in the middle of a traffic circle and that light behind her is simply between the shadow from the building and the shade from the tower and its fence rather than reflected light, I think. Light was coming from behind her left shoulder, which was indeed west (funny how that works
But it's still a good pointer to look at ALL surroundings for natural reflectors - I would'nt have wanted to move towards that building in this case because of composition considerations (there's a few good shots down there as Blurmore demonstrates from the other side of the circle, facing the opposite direction) but there are some distractions which have to be avoided too. Plus I particularly like that angle
Blurmore, thanks for your further explanation re: the 85 - very useful. I've now been looking HARD at these shots to see if I simply managed to miss teh POF and I think in a couple that's the case, despite having thought I was being careful - there's one where the ribbon on the dress, or shoe/pavement is tack sharp (higher contrast, thus easier to latch on?). I clearly need to practice more with it on some non-moving targets at different aps and in different light and see if I can codifiy this so I know what the lens (or I) am doing and can make it consistent. Sometimes - even wide open - it's FABULOUS, so it's the inconsistency which is frustrating, especially when I'm consciously thinking about where the focus point is and making a real effort to nail it with technique instead of luck. Maybe I want to aim for technique AND luck ....
See this thread in the Finishing School.
It would be interesting to see what can be done in LR as well, John.
If you must shoot in the middle of the day, a -2/3s stop white scrim to cut the sunlight can be a great asset in addition to fill flash.....
Cute daughter and cool pic.
My only nit would be the tangency of the window and her head. Not a deal breaker, but avoiding it is preferable JMHO Shifting the camera to the left just a few inches would have placed her head in the open area of the wall behind her.
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
I'm trolling for someone to show me how. Let's adjourn to the Finishing School for this.
Pathfinder:
Agree on the window positioning. Alas, there's a street sign just to the left, and I had to compromise as best I could. In other shots she wasn't leaning out quite as far which solved the problem, but I loved the spontanaeity of this one despite the window-growing-out-of-head
Rutt:
Would you like a .raw file, and if so... how do I get it to you? It's ~14mb. Let me know!
No, I'm done. I won't do better than I already have. But if someone else wants to show how to do a competitive job in LR, s/he'll want the raw file. Why not post your offer on the Finishing School thread so that the right people will see it.
According to what I read years ago, but haven't tried, you may have had a reflector along and didn't know it. The suggestion was to use a silver sun shade that is sold to put over the inside of your windshield when parked to keep the car cooler.
Jane