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More about flare (technique)
So in my quest to improve how I capture flare/shoot into the sun in camera, I did a bunch during a recent trip to Santa Monica CA - gorgeous evening light, and I took the opportunity to play. They all kinda sucked, however, and I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing (or not). Michael Glenn, sure hope you'll chime in as our resident Prince of Flare! lol
Yes, I was spot metering, but I was also letting them overexpose a tad on the grounds that gave me more to work with in post for the parts NOT in the light. This was probably my first mistake. LOL. But I'm really baffled by one thing, which is the weird mottling that appears when I push the blacks/contrast to get the image correctly exposed. What IS that? Bad exposure? Some kind of weirdness from a filter (I keep a UV filter on my lenses for protection)? Dirt? It's most noticeable on her skin.
5dII, 135L, raw. No flash or reflectors, partly ecause I didn't have any, but mainly because I want to practice doing this with all natural light.
The edited version was raw processed in LR, then exported to PS for a bit more tweaking, including running a Florabella action on it (those are usually WONDERFUL for this kind of shot), and some manual tweaking on my part.
I'm not happy with it at all, and this was the best I managed. :dunno
Yes, I was spot metering, but I was also letting them overexpose a tad on the grounds that gave me more to work with in post for the parts NOT in the light. This was probably my first mistake. LOL. But I'm really baffled by one thing, which is the weird mottling that appears when I push the blacks/contrast to get the image correctly exposed. What IS that? Bad exposure? Some kind of weirdness from a filter (I keep a UV filter on my lenses for protection)? Dirt? It's most noticeable on her skin.
5dII, 135L, raw. No flash or reflectors, partly ecause I didn't have any, but mainly because I want to practice doing this with all natural light.
The edited version was raw processed in LR, then exported to PS for a bit more tweaking, including running a Florabella action on it (those are usually WONDERFUL for this kind of shot), and some manual tweaking on my part.
I'm not happy with it at all, and this was the best I managed. :dunno
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I suspect that the effect is the result of addtional reflections caused by your UV filter. I had a simular issue some time ago and it all depended on the angle the light was coming in de lens. When I removed the UV filter things were a lot better but not perfect and slightly changing the sideways angle helped further but not enough. so I started to play and test different options. Working with a small aperture (high F number) worked very well for the creation of the start effect (f64). But then again I had a DoF that was to large and the picture quality suffered from de-fraction (typical for high F numbers). So, I started to use variable Neutral Density filter (NDX). That allowed me to dial-in the density between 0,5 and 1000. I have a D800E and with almost 12 stops of dynamic range I can apply a certain metering technique. First I decided what DoF I want to have and set my aperture accordantly, I set my shutter speed for a portrait to about 1/250s. I measure spot on the very bright spots (not directly in the sun) and adjust my ND so that these highlights are just on the outer edge of my dynamic range (extreem upper level of my light meter, this takes a bit of playing to figure out). Then I spot measure on the darker locations (face) and I check again that I do not exceed the lower end of the 12 stops on my lightmeter (camera). If need be I adjust the NDX in either direction, depending on what I want. Lets say the person is a bit to dark, Then I will give in on the Highlights and shuffle the balance to lighten-up the darks by reducing the NDX factor. Which way I balance it depends on the picture.
The alternative is off-course use a fill-in flash.
I hope this helped a bit,
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Lensmole
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As to the filters.... I know many don't believe in them but I am constantly losing my lenscaps and I feel better protecting said piece of $1200 glass. Normally, they causae no degradation of any kind so I don't even think about them, but I may remove them when shooting into the light from now on. I've never had trouble removing them, btw - I just don't overtighten them when I put them on and they have always come off without a problem (famous last words!!)
DS3, I use my in-camera lightmeter, and typically am shooting fast; in many cases, I don't think I'd even have time for the process you describe before the shot was gone! I usually meter off the face and then allow myself to overexpose by 1/2-1 stop to "expose to the right"; since I shoot raw, I know I have the latitude to manipulate it some in post. I don't always get it right, but typically that works well for me
Fstop can give you the star effect and control the amount of light bouncing around inside your lens whihc is what gives the slightly washed out look...but sometimes you don't want the star effect..you just want that nice glob of light (which I think is what you want).
Of course mornings and afternoons will probably be best so that sun can actually be in your frame without having to resort to odd angles. Also the farther away in your frame the flare source is the more your subject has a chance of looking good. I think one of the issues with your shot is the light is blasting away to close to her head.
Lastly "obstructions". Try this..find some trees (or building or whatever) and try getting some flare by getting the sun just peaking out behind leaves or branches. (don't need a subject for this) play with fstops and exposure till you like what you get. it's really hard to trust a meter in these conditions so chimping will be key.
14-24 24-70 70-200mm (vr2)
85 and 50 1.4
45 PC and sb910 x2
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I have found that the older lenses give me much more pleasing (and easier) results. For regular flare I find my 35-70mm 2.8, circa 1992, to be the best. In fact, that lens will produce flare even if you don't want it if you're not careful.
For "star flare" the really old 80-200 2.8 is pretty incredible. The new 70-200 VRII just doesn't work. I think it has to do with the rounded blades.
I know you shoot Canon so this doesn't help, but maybe some research on Canon lenses would find one that works better than others for that particular purpose.
To clarify here, I'm more worried about the mottling effect and generally bad "shooting into the light" results; actual flare per se would have been a bonus, but mainly trying to troubleshoot why this went SO badly wrong overall when I had such gorgeous light to work with!! Feels like I really squandered it
Alright now I'm good to talk!
You did it right. You were spot metering and you over exposed the shot. Going up a stop of light usually does the trick because you want to pull in more data for your subject's skin/facial features (the camera's metering won't be able to distinguish flare from the subject causing the photo to look underexposed).
So where did you go wrong here? I think this was shot a little too early for flare. Closer to sunset would have worked better for a beach shot. My reasoning is the water in the background. I'm assuming the sun was backlighting her here. The sunrays hit the the water causing the water to reflect powerfully. You are shooting directly into this when the angle is too high. Too much light/too powerful of a sun will create some nasty looking flare. I would have ended up with the same results if I was in your position.
I notice your shooting with a long prime too (the 135). If you ever get a chance, try renting out a smaller prime..like a 50 or 35. I never shoot flare with longer lenses because I have less versatility between me and the subject. It's easier to move around and achieve the overall shot IMO.
As for the mottling of light, I believe it has to do with the lack of dynamic range from the 5d mkii. The photo is incredibly over exposed, so you are losing out on some data to work with in post (just my own guess). Also, flare is a bit harder to edit. I use curves to adjust exposure/contrast because you have a TON more control over what part of the image you editing. If you have trouble with the sliders, try messing with that tool. I rarely touch sliders anymore having understood how curves works. It's a godsend for me, and the work that I do. Especially for any flare edits I encounter
Hope this helps somewhat!
WATER. Yup. Exactly. (why didn't I think of that?! Oh, I know - I was having so much fun being back at MY beach for the first time in 20 years, and the dynamic range of real eyes made it look so PRETTY I forgot it was acting as a giant reflector ~facepalm~
Yes, I used curves to edit these as well, but neither sliders nor curves was enough alone to pull it back (I had to use both), and I still got that nasty, dark-mottled leprosy effect on the skin no matter which way I did it; I'll assume that's the filter messing with me and just remember to take it off next time I'm on a shoot-into-the-light fest
Again, thank you!!!!!!
PS I own the 50mm 1.4, it just wasn't available while I was shooting, but I'll try it next time (even though I suspect the focusing on it will suck into the light on a 5dII!)
As for the focusing, switch to manual if the sun is too strong. I'll sometimes open up live view and zoom in to focus on the eyes. Or if I'm lazy, I'll shoot a portrait at f/2.8, autofocus on something not super bright (such as their shoes), recompose the frame, and then snap a shot of them. Depending on the distance, they will be in focus most of the time.