into hard sunlight
This is one of the toughest lighting conditions to deal with. Where I can, I try and position my subjects so that they are in shade, or at the very least their backs are to the sun. This way they are looking away from the bright light and less likely to squint and frown, and they will also have more even shaded light on their faces, with rim lighting around the sides.
But where you can’t position people and you have to deal with the lighting situation as it is, you have a few options:
You can get lucky with the angle so the features and details of most of the people are shaded, providing you with fairly uniform light on the essential parts of what you want to capture. Some parts of the scene will blow out, but hopefully nothing really relevant.
With this photograph, no flash was used. However, I did work things in my favour by shooting in the RAW format so that I have much more control over the image in post-production. I can more easily hold detail in the highlights while bringing up detail in the shadow areas.
(The examples in this posting assume that you are a solo photographer without the team of assistants to hold up large scrims and fill lights, but that you have to make do with what you have – a camera with a speedlight mounted on it.)
But if you’re stuck with full sun where part of the subject is in shade and the rest in sun, you have two options:
1. Use flash. Direct flash with no light modifier.
I would suggest staying at max sync speed to get the most range / power from your flashgun. Only go to high-speed sync flash if you really need that shallow depth of field or high shutter speed.
This image needed no work in post-production to look like this, and as far as I am concerned is a perfectly acceptable image of these two flowergirls.
Here I used the histogram to make sure I don’t lose detail in the highlights, and then I added flash at -0.7 EV compensation. The flash in this instance is more than just a subtle fill-flash so I had to dial it up from the usual range of -3 to -2 EV where I keep fill-in flash.
Then you have another option.
2. Don’t use flash.
But then you have to accept one of two things that will happen.
a. the image is going to look poor because of a lack of shadow detail and because of the harsh contrast.
.
b. Or you can accept that the image without flash is going to need some work in Photoshop.
Here I created two JPGs from the RAW file, each at different exposures. Then I combined the two JPGs as layers in Photoshop and masked off certain areas so I could get detail in the shadows and retain detail in the highlights.
This does look good, but this does take time.
So there you have the choices.
Personally, I would be quite happy to accept the compromise of fairly hard fill-flash in this situation to bring up the shadow detail. Doing it this way and still controlling my exposure properly by using my camera in manual exposure mode gives me a very good image already during the actual moment of taking the photograph.
Paul Hodgson Said,
June 14, 2008 @ 9:04 am
Neil,
Just curious re the first image up top - no flash was used - did you spot meter? Did you increase exposure to bring the shows up on the faces? Did you change the exposure comp to allow for severe strong backlighting? It’s a beautiful capture by the way.
Paul
Neil Said,
June 14, 2008 @ 9:43 am
Dave Said,
June 14, 2008 @ 10:39 am
Nice article, as usual. One thing I struggle with, especially attempting to transition into full Manual exposure mode from Av (maybe a crutch for me), is where to meter? I can’t meter the dess (in your example), I can’t meter the highlights, and the faces are too far to spot-meter (for me) — whenever I do so, I get wildly different readings. So, I’m left with center-weighted or evaluative metering, and I just feel that it’s not too accurate. One thing I tend to do it point to the ground (looking for grass), meter it, and either keep it or go -2/3ev from there.
What are your thoughts?
-Dave
Neil Said,
June 14, 2008 @ 11:46 am
David Burridge Said,
June 14, 2008 @ 2:17 pm
Thanks again Neil!
Rachel Said,
June 14, 2008 @ 7:49 pm
Even with an assistant I have found that if you always wait to get the lighting conditions modified just right the moment is gone. My thoughts are that you should have a strategy to deal with whatever comes your way then you won’t miss the moments that are to me the most important aspect of wedding/people photography. I have struggled with this situation myself and in the past have either bracketed my exposures or taken the long road in photoshop. Thanks to you I have recently ventured into the whole idea of fill flash, still no where near mastering it but moving forward all the time, armed with the knowledge from ‘planetneil’, thanks
dan gabel Said,
June 15, 2008 @ 2:48 pm
These two girls are so precious - it seems that no matter what strategies you use to modify the image, they remain beautiful. Your lesson was superbly detailed and ‘enlightening’.
Rodney Said,
June 16, 2008 @ 12:06 pm
Thanks so much for taking the time to post this article and the many others on your site. They are very well written. Not only listing the different options but showing pictures as a result of using each option was brilliant!
Stephen Said,
June 16, 2008 @ 1:36 pm
Thanks for this topic. This is another area where I ran into problems in the past.
Neil Said,
June 16, 2008 @ 2:50 pm
Paul Said,
June 16, 2008 @ 5:41 pm
Neil,
Thank you for replying; I thought as much and glad you confirmed my thoughts.
Cheerio
P
Dave Said,
June 17, 2008 @ 2:10 pm
You mention that you shoot and check the histogram, then let some of the highlights blow out. How do you know you’re not generally overexposing the focus of the image too? Checking the histogram, for me, I can see where the highlights are. I can see that they might be in section 5, or blown out. However, if A LOT is blown out, then I can’t really tell if the rest is where I want it to be? How do you come to the right exposure just by checking the histogram? If you see a high stack at the far right, how do you know some of that isn’t detail you wanted back?
Your latest image, for example: So much of this couple would be shown as stacked to the right in the histogram. There is probably very little left in the back levels. How do you know when you’ve gone enough? Did you zoom on her face and spot that, then set it in Manual?
Thanks,
-Dave
Neil Said,
June 17, 2008 @ 10:07 pm
Sidney Said,
June 18, 2008 @ 11:49 am
In the following quote, what is the difference between max sync speed and high-speed sync flash?
“I would suggest staying at max sync speed to get the most range / power from your flashgun. Only go to high-speed sync flash if you really need that shallow depth of field or high shutter speed.”
Does flash power automatically increase with the increase of the sync speed?
Neil Said,
June 18, 2008 @ 10:10 pm
Christian Said,
June 18, 2008 @ 11:08 pm
Sidney, in response to your question, max sync speed is the highest speed that a mechanical shutter will sync with a flash, on most cameras 250/s although some consumer cameras achieve 500/s with the use of an electronic shutter. A higher sync speed allows a higher shutter speed which in turn allows a larger aperture. This allows more flash to be captured by the camera so the flash unit does not have to work as hard, which in turn translates into greater flash range.
The high speed sync flash I believe Neil is referring to is high speed FP mode (I don’t know what it is called on Canon cameras) which allows the camera to sync at any speed above 250/s. This normally has the effect of significantly reducing flash range, although I am having amazing results using this mode with a D300 and an SB600 flash. It doesn’t seem to be taxing the flash at all, almost an instant recycle.
Omar Said,
June 19, 2008 @ 5:24 am
Hi Neil, another great article, thanks for sharing your experience again!
I was wondering… In such situation wouldn’t be better or easier just to take the photo in RAW and then make the edition?
Neil Said,
June 19, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
Robert Woudenberg Said,
June 20, 2008 @ 7:43 am
To comment on what Christian said I use the FP high speed sync all the time for this situation. The problem is that the smaller the aperture the less the range of the flash. Therefore to kill the shadows you need full power flash. You are after all competing with the sun.
So I generally try a test exposure at f4 or so then set the appropriate shutter speed for 1/2 stop or so under exposure (spot on subject face)then blast the flash full manual in FP so my shutter speed could be 1/2000. The flash is going full pop so it does take full time to recycle. The “magic” is that the FP mode makes the flash fire several times to get exposures across the shutter as it moves.
My experience is that it is a waste to try anything other than full power manual when doing this and then to adjust exposure accordingly. The downside is the “magic” decreases the flash range considerably. With iso100 SB800 at f4 1/250 is good to 7.6 meters at the 1/1600 that you will need to get the correct ambiant exposure the range is 1.4 meters. Stopping down decreases range as well so there is no correct answer (1/640@f6.3) is 1.4m range.
A work around is to fire the flash full power with the PC and utilze only the part of the image that is not cut off by the shutter. To do this you may have to turn the camera upside down. This requires lots of experimenting and I have not yet done this at an event. However it does work. And will give you the 7.6M range.
As usual however Neil has multiple ways of accomplishing this and I learned alot from this post.
Dave S Said,
July 11, 2008 @ 2:10 pm
Hi Neil, I have a question for you/all. What metering mode do most use in harsh sunlit situations. Spot, center weighted, partial, evaluative? And when using fill flash are you metering on highlights (white dress) and adjusting flash for the darks.
Thanks
Neil Said,
July 11, 2008 @ 8:19 pm
rodney Said,
July 23, 2008 @ 6:48 pm
on the canon 580exII when shooting in ettl doesn’t the camera meter the scene and reconize it as fill flash and compensate automatically? That’s actually one question I”ve been trying to figure out.