do you have simple explanation of why I would want to overpower the sun?

[drsioux]

If you are taking photos in full sun, which I wouldn't typically do, I hear the phrase "overpowering the sun" thrown about. I'm not completely sure I "get" that. If there is already a LOT of sun shining on your subject, why would you want to use strobes and add MORE light? I can see where, in the case of high sun overhead", that you would want to eliminate the eye socket shadows and I guess you would need a high powered strobe to match or overcome the light shining on the face, thus eliminating the shadows. Yes? No? But say you are shooting at 2 pm, so you can position the model with her back to the sun, wouldn't just regular old fill flash do the trick? Why would "overpowering the sun" be necessary? It is the concept of adding powerful strobelight to conditions that appear already too bright that confuses me. I don't know if I'm even making any sense, just hoping that someone can make the lightbulb go on for me, in that regard.

 

[o hey tyler]

They may have just been referring to having bright enough lights to cover the dynamic range of a DSLR sensor and now have blown highs or black lows.

 

[Big Mike]

This is an extreme example but here is an example of where I wanted to overpower the sun.
It was shot during a bright, overcast afternoon.

The reason why I wanted to overpower the sun, was because I wanted the dramatic sky and I also wanted my light (off camera) to be the main light source on the subject.

 

[mjhoward]

Cool photo Big Mike. Would have also been interesting to see the same shot without the use of your strobes just to see how drastic the difference is.

 

[Big Mike]

Here is one, strobe sill used, but not overpowering the ambient so much. (don't mind the dude in the BG, this isn't a finished image).

 

[jake337]

Mike shows a perfect example. Not just to overpower but for control over your background exposure. The background in Mike's photo could be anywhere from completely blacked out, to just a stop underexposed. It's the control over your exposure that your after.

 

[Studio7Four]

Take a step back for a minute. The impression I get from your post is that one of your concerns is that you are worried about having too much light in the shot. Within limits you can adjust your shutter speed and aperture size to balance the amount of light in your frame, whether that light is coming from your on-camera flash, off-camera strobes, or that flaming ball 93 million miles away.

Once you accept that you can treat the sun as just another light source, no different than a (powerful, diffuse) strobe in studio. Think about all the reasons you might want to adjust your other lights relative to that one. You mentioned the shadows, particularly around the eyes, and that is one valid reason. Another might be that you want to adjust the relative brightness of your subject to the background, so that rather than having everything equally well exposed you in essence darken the background to help the subject pop. By treating the sun as just another light you are not limiting yourself to shooting at any particular angle - you can rotate to get any background you want and use the sun as a main light, fill light, rim light...

To go back to your example, say you're shooting at 2pm, but let's be more specific and say you're on the beach on the east coast. You can position your subject with her back to the sun - and have a row of cheesy souvenir shops in the background. Or you can turn her around, add appropriate light, and have the beach and ocean in the background. Any by adjusting your light level, not only will you get rid of those raccoon eye, but you can also get anywhere from a slightly overexposed water (since there will be plenty of reflections coming back at you from the waves) to slightly underexposed water with richer color, whichever effect you're going for.

 

[KmH]

do you have simple explanation of why I would want to overpower the sun?

Overpowering the sunlight gives the photographer total control over the light in the scene.

 

[drsioux]

Ok, but if I'm limited to 1/250th of a second shutter speed with my strobes, or 1/200th using a skyport transmitter, I already lose some control of my ambient light, yes? Since shutter speed controls ambient, aperture controls flash exp. I can't crank up the shutter to make the background darker, I can only play with the power of my lights (Rangers, BTW) and with the aperture. I don't even know what I don't know, can't even formulate a reasonable question, so maybe I need to work at it a bit more until I really figure out what I'm trying to ask. I have no problem using my lights indoors or even outdoors, because I set up the conditions I want, in the shade or whatever. I've never had any reason to "overpower the sun", but I want to understand it. Big Mike, in that set up with the girl and dark clouds, what settings were you using that made the clouds go dark, without a high shutter speed. It can't be that they are just dark, RELATIVE to her?

 

[KmH]

Looks like you're a Canon shooter. Investigate HSS (High Speed Sync), which allows using shutter speeds faster than 1/200 - 1/250.

There are also radio triggers that also can accommodate faster than x-sync speed flash photography.

No doubt, sometimes gear is the limiting factor. Though your camera might be capable of doing HSS, not all strobes/triggers are.

 

[oldmacman]

Ok, but if I'm limited to 1/250th of a second shutter speed with my strobes, or 1/200th using a skyport transmitter, I already lose some control of my ambient light, yes? Since shutter speed controls ambient, aperture controls flash exp. I can't crank up the shutter to make the background darker, I can only play with the power of my lights (Rangers, BTW) and with the aperture. I don't even know what I don't know, can't even formulate a reasonable question, so maybe I need to work at it a bit more until I really figure out what I'm trying to ask. I have no problem using my lights indoors or even outdoors, because I set up the conditions I want, in the shade or whatever. I've never had any reason to "overpower the sun", but I want to understand it. Big Mike, in that set up with the girl and dark clouds, what settings were you using that made the clouds go dark, without a high shutter speed. It can't be that they are just dark, RELATIVE to her?

I've never tried this outside, but if you can set to your synch speed (say 1/200) and adjust your ISO and aperture so that you are just at the edge of black, you can make it happen with strobes. Depending on your strobe, it could output all of its light in 1/2000 of a second (or faster). Essentially, you just gave your camera a synch speed of 1/2000 of a second because that's all it takes for the strobe to expose the image to the sensor. Even though that is a fraction of the exposure time, the exposure doesn't really change because you have set the camera so that the ambient light does not affect the image.

 

[Kerbouchard]

A couple of things, if you're overpowering the sun with studio strobles, most of the time you are at base ISO, sync speed for your shutter, with an aperture of around of around f/16. You have more control over ambient than just the shutter speed. ISO, Aperture, and shutter speed all control ambient. I think you read some quick bullet points and missed one thing. Yes, people say that use shutter speed to control ambient and aperture to control flash power, but what they really mean is that those are the only independent controls.

In any case, back to your question. Why would we want to over power the sun. Well, because other than providing life, the sun pretty much sucks as a light source(at least photographically speaking). It's a very bright, very harsh, point light source that is difficult to control and doesn't provide a very flattering light. So, if we have a strobe with a lighting modifier than can overpower the sun, we can introduce a softer, directional light that is more flattering.

In any case, what most people mean by overpowering the sun isn't to have a light that is brighter than they sun, merely a light that allows you to use settings where you can set the background to the exposure you want, and have the flash be powerful enough to bring the exposure on your subject up to a point where it balances out.

The main reason that is important is because a photographer will generally not take a shot with a subject in direct sunlight because the subject will probably be squinting. Instead, the photographer will position the subject in the shade. The problem we run into is the background is probably not going to be in the shade but instead lit by full sun. In this case, we need to a light that can overpower the sun so that we can balance out the two parts of the composition.

Hopefully, that clears up some of your questions.

 

[steve817]

This is an extreme example but here is an example of where I wanted to overpower the sun.
It was shot during a bright, overcast afternoon.

The reason why I wanted to overpower the sun, was because I wanted the dramatic sky and I also wanted my light (off camera) to be the main light source on the subject.

Wow Mike! I haven't visited the site in over two years. You have come a long way!

 

[drsioux]

In any case, back to your question. Why would we want to over power the sun. Well, because other than providing life, the sun pretty much sucks as a light source(at least photographically speaking). It's a very bright, very harsh, point light source that is difficult to control and doesn't provide a very flattering light. So, if we have a strobe with a lighting modifier than can overpower the sun, we can introduce a softer, directional light that is more flattering.

In any case, what most people mean by overpowering the sun isn't to have a light that is brighter than they sun, merely a light that allows you to use settings where you can set the background to the exposure you want, and have the flash be powerful enough to bring the exposure on your subject up to a point where it balances out.

THAT was exactly what I was looking for and it makes complete sense to me. THANK YOU for that.

 

[Village Idiot]

A powerful light and a narrow aperture or an ND filter. I have a 6 stop ND filter so that I don't have to shoot at a completely narrow aperture when I need to kill the ambient.