Getting Natural light Correct ?? C&C

ightenhill

Much to the horror of my wife (who quickly becomes a rather bored subject) I have been taking some time trying to improve my technique for natural looking light correct but I always seem to come out looking a little underexposed wether it be natural sunlight only or balanced with flash.. Where should I be taking readings and are there any basics that would help..

#1 Natural sunlight only flooding in from the garden windows.. I either seemed to end up with to much light and shade or a blown out face..



#2 Flash attempting to balance with the Ambient light but its a bit dark and even though the lamp is on in the background it seems to cast no light in that area when a subtle amount of light may have given more depth..



#3 Here my issue is a little different.. How do I go about keeping both the background and sky bright and punchy (in terms of contrast and colour) but avoid Jackie ending up looking washed out..

Qarik

1) when folks talk about natural window light..it is diffused light..that is the sun can not be directly beaming in as in your 1st shot. find another window where the sun light is indirect.

2) to correctly expose for ambient, meter the back wall for example and setup your shutter speed, app, iso to get what you want. Then add add your flash to light up the subject using FEC/TTL to taste. It's a 2 step process.

rsquared

#1: Qarik is right on. The key is in your statement that the light is "flooding" in. Take another picture at the same time of day, but with a white sheet hanging in front of the window diffusing the light and you'll have much better luck.

#2: In my mind the biggest thing to remember when balancing flash and a continuous light source (lamp, sun, etc.) is that ISO and aperture will affect all light, but shutter speed will only affect the continuous light (assuming you stay under your camera's max sync speed for flash). For this shot let's assume you shot it at 1/250th. Opening that up to 1/125 would double the light in the background without changing exposure on your subject. Open it up again to 1/60 and you've now quadrupled the lamp light.

This is the kind of thing that probably makes more sense if you see it happen, so go try a reshoot, or similar shot. Set your camera to manual exposure and set it to the same settings you used here. Then open the shutter speed one stop and take another frame. Open another stop and shoot again. Do this 3 or 4 times and then compare the photos.

#3 is really going to depend on your flash settings. If you're using TTL then you'll need to add in some negative compensation. If not, then you need to reduce the power on the flash. Let us know how this was shot and we can help you better.

ightenhill

Thanks .. Most of that makes sense and I see what you mean(especially diffusing the light source which didn't occur to me).. The final shot was ISO 200 1/50 f22 10mm no flash was used

rsquared

ightenhill wrote: »

Thanks .. Most of that makes sense and I see what you mean(especially diffusing the light source which didn't occur to me).. The final shot was ISO 200 1/50 f22 10mm no flash was used

Ah! I only took a quick glance at the shadow at her feet and assumed the sun was behind her. Upon closer look I see that's your shadow, and I see a bit of hers behind her.

This one is really tough, especially with such fair skin. I think the only thing you can do is choose a location or pose that has her out of direct sunlight. In this scene that would probably mean you moving 5-10 feet to your right, so the sun was more over her right (camera left) shoulder. Then you could have used pretty much the same settings you had here to get the same general punch to the background, but have less light on your subject. You may even need to kick in a bit of fill flash in this situation...

BigCamera

ightenhill wrote: »

Much to the horror of my wife (who quickly becomes a rather bored subject) I have been taking some time trying to improve my technique for natural looking light correct but I always seem to come out looking a little underexposed wether it be natural sunlight only or balanced with flash.. Where should I be taking readings and are there any basics that would help..

#1 Natural sunlight only flooding in from the garden windows.. I either seemed to end up with to much light and shade or a blown out face..


#2 Flash attempting to balance with the Ambient light but its a bit dark and even though the lamp is on in the background it seems to cast no light in that area when a subtle amount of light may have given more depth..



#3 Here my issue is a little different.. How do I go about keeping both the background and sky bright and punchy (in terms of contrast and colour) but avoid Jackie ending up looking washed out..

The most diffuse natural window light is North facing window light.
So try to use that window if possible.
One other note-look at your shadows, caused by the directional light.
Her leg being partially in shadow makes her thigh look skinny while her upper thigh/bottom by ratio looks unflattering.
Edward Weston had this issue in an image of Charis where her upper arm
was shadowed vertically and so appeared anorexic. It required judicious dodging to put some substance back in her arm.
Just an observation.
R