Lighting on cloudy days?

[Lieniitte]

What advice can anyone give about not making photos of people look flat because of the lighting, when I live in a place where it rains like 230-260 days a year and most of the dry ones are cloudy? I have a very cheap external flash, but I do not have a softbox and while I do plan on getting a better flash sometime in the next few months, can't do that just now. The one I have somehow makes images have a weird red tint (not all the time, but enough) and it sometimes glitches and just starts flashing very brightly like 10 times a second and that could prove dangerous if anyone with epilepsy or something like that happens to be near and I don't want to cause any problems.

I plan on doing a lot of photography this month, learning new things. This month is the driest of the year here, but it doesn't mean there will be a lot of sun. I mainly take photos of people. So any advice would be appreciated!

 

[The_Traveler]

Editing to increase contrast.
Post one so examples can be shown

 

[table1349]

Post processing is about all you can do for now until you can add light to your shots. The best thing to fix flat lighting is to add to the lighting so it is not flat.

 

[KmH]

Yep.
Using flash (off the camera) and a light modifier to light your subject is the best way to avoid the flat look on a overcast day.
Without a modifier you would want to be careful with how much flash power you use, and how you set the flash unit to shape the beam of light. Start with about 1/4 power and remember that when using flash, with a single shutter release we can control the ambient light exposure separately from the flash exposure.

Be sure you have the camera white balance set to Flash.
But, the sometimes red tint many mean the flash unit's main capacitor was not fully charged and caused a flash unit light color shift.
Few hot shoe flash units are able to flash 10 times a second at anything near full power. The main capacitor cannot recharge that fast.
From a full power flash it takes from 2 to 20 seconds for a flash unit to fully recharge/recycle. Recycle time depends on the flash unit and the type of batteries you use. A flash unit can recycle faster when it is set to less than full power.

Reflectors don't work very good with overcast skies.

 

[Lieniitte]

Editing to increase contrast.
Post one so examples can be shown

Post processing is about all you can do for now until you can add light to your shots. The best thing to fix flat lighting is to add to the lighting so it is not flat.

Would a flash solve this problem when I get one and if I use it correctly?


Ok, Here are 2 examples of images that were taken under cloudy conditions that I like, but they just seem flat. I uploaded 2 because in the first one, of the toddler, I tried to do something about it. But in the second one with the woman, I simply went with the dreary look, because I had no clue what else to do with it. I'd have liked both better if shot on a sunny day. But what can I do under these conditions to make them not so flat in post processing?

 

[Lieniitte]

Yep.
Using flash (off the camera) and a light modifier to light your subject is the best way to avoid the flat look on a overcast day.
Without a modifier you would want to be careful with how much flash power you use, and how you set the flash unit to shape the beam of light. Start with about 1/4 power and remember that when using flash, with a single shutter release we can control the ambient light exposure separately from the flash exposure.

Be sure you have the camera white balance set to Flash.
But, the sometimes red tint many mean the flash unit's main capacitor was not fully charged and caused a flash unit light color shift.
Few hot shoe flash units are able to flash 10 times a second at anything near full power. The main capacitor cannot recharge that fast.
From a full power flash it takes from 2 to 20 seconds for a flash unit to fully recharge/recycle. Recycle time depends on the flash unit and the type of batteries you use. A flash unit can recycle faster when it is set to less than full power.

Reflectors don't work very good with overcast skies.

Thanks! I'll have to remember that. When I used that flash I never set the WB to flash. I'll have to try that out!

And if they don't usually flash so fast, as in 10 times per second, then it really is very weird. Maybe it was more like 5 or 6 times a second, but it really was very fast. I never thought about that being weird until now, though it did always take an extremely long time for the flash to charge fully between shots. The rapid flashing it did on it's own, very suddenly and I couldn't even turn the flash off with the buttons, it just kept flashing until I took the batteries out.

I will definitely get a book on the subject before I buy a new flash and read up about all the controls and when to use them. Though to use it off the camera, and not putting it on top, I guess I would need a stand for it too? And a wireless trigger thing. So many things to work my way up to, but I am exited to get there slowly

 

[KmH]

How to light a portrait photo on an overcast day - Bing

 

[tirediron]

Absolutely - photography is all about light. Photography IS light! The controllable light you have the better. Here's kind of an extreme example (from a promotional image, where I needed a LOT of varying eposures): This is straight ambient light, heavy overcast, light behind-ish the subjects:

This is with a single speedlight, no modifier, I'm holding in my left hand. Now granted you likely don't want to go nearly this extreme, but you can see how much of a difference there is. Angled light, subjects stand out, background knocked down and not distracting...

 

[407370]

Tone mapping might be a way to go:

 

[Lieniitte]

Absolutely - photography is all about light. Photography IS light! The controllable light you have the better. Here's kind of an extreme example (from a promotional image, where I needed a LOT of varying eposures): This is straight ambient light, heavy overcast, light behind-ish the subjects:

This is with a single speedlight, no modifier, I'm holding in my left hand. Now granted you likely don't want to go nearly this extreme, but you can see how much of a difference there is. Angled light, subjects stand out, background knocked down and not distracting...

Quite the difference! And it might be just me and my eyes, but it looks sharper with the flash as well! Though I wonder, is it possible to get images to look sunnier? As in a sunny feel to it?

 

[Lieniitte]

Tone mapping might be a way to go:
View attachment 100813

Your edit is definitely more dramatic, not flat and the subject stands out more!
Is that with the Tone Curve section of Lightroom? Lightroom is the only software I have used, but I have stayed clear of that section of it, just because I don't know how to use it. Might come in handy to read up and experiment!

 

[407370]

Tone mapping might be a way to go:
View attachment 100813

Your edit is definitely more dramatic, not flat and the subject stands out more!
Is that with the Tone Curve section of Lightroom? Lightroom is the only software I have used, but I have stayed clear of that section of it, just because I don't know how to use it. Might come in handy to read up and experiment!

This is done with Photomatix HDR Photography Software - Standalone Programs Plugins by HDRsoft

 

[tirediron]

Though I wonder, is it possible to get images to look sunnier? As in a sunny feel to it?

Absolutely; it's all about the quantity and control of light. On a day like the one in the example, if I wanted "sunny day", I would have used a big (~60") soft box with a quarter cut of orange or light orange gel. Typically however, just an ungelled light in a decent size modifier set so it's only slightly brighter in the background will give you the look you want. The biggest difference is in the eyes. Look at your images and my first example. Everyone has "squirrel eyes"... but in my second image, the speedlight fills in the eyes, and adds a bit of sparkle or life to them.

 

[Lieniitte]

Though I wonder, is it possible to get images to look sunnier? As in a sunny feel to it?

Absolutely; it's all about the quantity and control of light. On a day like the one in the example, if I wanted "sunny day", I would have used a big (~60") soft box with a quarter cut of orange or light orange gel. Typically however, just an ungelled light in a decent size modifier set so it's only slightly brighter in the background will give you the look you want. The biggest difference is in the eyes. Look at your images and my first example. Everyone has "squirrel eyes"... but in my second image, the speedlight fills in the eyes, and adds a bit of sparkle or life to them.

Thank you for the info! Will definitely look into all those different types for when I get a new flash
I see what you mean about the eyes! Maybe that's what makes it seem sharper to me

 

[tirediron]

The light increases contrast which gives the impression of sharpness; it doesn't necessarily mean that one image is sharper than another but it looks that way. Try it yourself, bring any flat image into LR and push the contrast slider to the right.