How could I have improved this shot?

[photo1x1.com]

In regard to flash: especially when it gets darker - keep in mind that objects that are closer to the flash are going to be much brighter than those further away.
To get a natural look, it is best to have the exposure only slightly darker (if at all) than you would when you wouldn´t use flash - and then use the flash only to fill in just some light for the foreground. Sometimes that means ramping up the ISO. But you can always take two shots to compare what you like better.

 

[Trever1t]

I wanted to shoot while the sun was setting but the sun set too quickly before I could get a good shot. In such a scenario, how could I have made it better?

It was windy, so a low shutter speed wouldn't have worked i guess ... what else to improve it?

Please critique honestly. I want to get better! View attachment 134674

A better exposure. Your shot is under-exposed. Fill light, whether reflected or artificial. Framed differently. A horizontal frame is ok if there's some story in the background, otherwise "portrait" orientation should be used. If you wanted to include the background then perhaps a wider perspective with the subject placed a bit further to left of frame. This crop feels very uncomfortable to me.

If I were you, I'd not worry about using flash or reflector at this point in your photography. I'd focus (see what I did there?) on understanding your cameras focus modes and exposure modes. Try to expose for the subject and forget the rest. Get your subject perfect and once you've mastered that you can worry about the secondary exposure of the backgrounds.....this will make sense later, I promise

 

[KmH]

Yes, my camera does have adjustable built-in flash but I was using a 300mm zoom lens so I didn't think to use it.

In lieu of a flash meter, as Designer mentioned, one can make test shots and look at the shot's histogram on the camera's rear LCD to judge how much flash power one wants to use.
One of the links I posted earlier has info about how to use/evaluate the histogram of an image to judge exposure, contrast, color & tone.

Depending on what 300 mm lens you have the built in flash may cause an undesirable shadow at the bottom of the image frame because the lens sticks out into the light path.

Manual hot shoe flash units can be had for reasonable cost.
I have 3 of these:
Yongnuo Professional Flash Speedlight Flashlight Yongnuo YN 560 III

 

[TerrificShotPhoto]

The lighting is not as bad as people explained. It can be fixed under photoshop by doing some skin brushing.

The pose and the face expression could have been better assuming that you asked the subject to pose ?!

Colors in this photos are not present. I would suggest you convert the photo in black and white .

 

[Dave442]

With that lens it often helps to set it to 200mm ahead of time and shoot there as opposed to 300mm. The hair is definitely dark, took a while before I even noticed the sunglasses propped on the head.

 

[smoke665]

It was windy, so a low shutter speed wouldn't have worked i guess ... what else to improve it?

Not necessarily if you supplement with a flash. Something the others didn't mention is the ability of the flash to freeze action.

 

[photo1x1.com]

It was windy, so a low shutter speed wouldn't have worked i guess ... what else to improve it?

Not necessarily if you supplement with a flash. Something the others didn't mention is the ability of the flash to freeze action.

Hi there,
well - not entirely. Flash can totally freeze an action in a dark studio environment. AND some flashes can freeze action outdoors. But most of them don´t. If there is enough light like in this shot, the flash would have only partly frozen the hair, because they would have still moved while the shutter was open, leaving some "fumelike" blur around the frozen parts. You could have used a technique called "dragging the shutter", but I guess it wouldn´t have worked too well with hair in the wind.

 

[smoke665]

well - not entirely. Flash can totally freeze an action in a dark studio environment. AND some flashes can freeze action outdoors. But most of them don´t. If

While there are limiting factors such as the amount of ambient light and output of the speedlight, it can be used stop action in many settings. I've seen photos of the wings on a hummingbird stopped in flight, obviously not in studio. Consider that typical speed lights have an effective "flash shutter" speed close to 1/1000, at full power, and double that at 1/4 power. The OP stated the sun had already set, so balancing a speedlight to ambient (camera shutter speed) should have been possible. Especially if it was off camera where either the power output or distance to the subject could be changed.

 

[Inklingforsake]

What great discussion on this thread. I wrote down all the points on paper. Thank you all very much, once again!

Looking forward to this weekend's Ice festival at Central Park, New York! Hope to get good pictures!

 

[photo1x1.com]

well - not entirely. Flash can totally freeze an action in a dark studio environment. AND some flashes can freeze action outdoors. But most of them don´t. If

While there are limiting factors such as the amount of ambient light and output of the speedlight, it can be used stop action in many settings. I've seen photos of the wings on a hummingbird stopped in flight, obviously not in studio. Consider that typical speed lights have an effective "flash shutter" speed close to 1/1000, at full power, and double that at 1/4 power. The OP stated the sun had already set, so balancing a speedlight to ambient (camera shutter speed) should have been possible. Especially if it was off camera where either the power output or distance to the subject could be changed.

I´m not quite sure, but we might be talking about the same thing. Just to be clear: There are basically two scenarios where you can stop motion with flash light, or add flash light to an image that would be frozen without flash too:

1. in a studio environment or dark outdoors, where flash is your only or at least main source of light. If you would shoot the same image with the same settings without flash, it would be close to dark. Then the flash freezes the motion due to its (hopefully) very short flash duration.
2. in a very bright setting where you set the sutter speed very high (or work with high ISO to achieve high shutter speed), and your flash has High Speed Synch or Hyper Synch or whatever capabilities. The image is actually frozen by the short shutter speed, and the flash is just adding some light to fill the shadows or for artistic purpose.

Pretty everything else won´t really work well.

 

[smoke665]

but we might be talking about the same thing

I think you're correct, I think you read my response to mean that it could always be used, and I read yours that it could never be. The OP stated that it was failing light. Not sure what she actually used for settings, but in this scenario she could have waited for the light to go even more if need be. Setting the exposure for the subject illuminated by the speedlight would have underexposed the ambient light. As such even with a 1/160 synch speed I would think any blurring of the hair caused by ambient light would be minimal. In the OP's situation, I feel it could have been used to her advantage.