feeling frustrated...

[paigew]

I am feeling frustrated with trying to shoot outside. Some places I read say "an overcast day is a photographers best friend". I tried that and my photos came out gloomy, and I was told I needed better light. Yesterday was BEAUTIFUL outside, 70 degrees and sun shiney. Took my daughter to the park to shoot and had trouble with getting the sky blown out. We moved to the shade and again the photos looked gloomy. Any suggestions? Is this just the 'winter sun'? I feel like I am missing something in my settings.


Here is an example of the sky.

Then we moved to the shade and I got this (this is after upping exposure and adding a yellow tint in iphoto)

 

[tirediron]

What you're missing is experience. In #1, The subject is under-exposed and has a slight case of 'racoon eyes'. This is caused by the bright sky "fooling" your camera's meter. There is no way to prevent the sky from blowing out in a scene like this unless you add more light. The best way to do this would have been to have a diffused off-camera-flash camera left set to add enough light so that the exposure on her face matched the sky. The next best thing would have been to use your pop-up flash with some sort of quicky diffuser (tissue, Tupperware, etc) on it, and in manual adjusting the exposure 'til both the child and the sky were exposed correctly. (BTW, compositional tip: "Up the nose" shots almost NEVER work!)


#2 is under-exposed and has colour-cast/white-balance issues. Try spot-metering her face next time, and never be afraid to add fill light. Also, be sure to shoot in RAW, or RAW+JPG to give you the most room for editing.


Just my $00.02 worth - your mileage may vary.


~John

 

[cgipson1]

^^What tirediron said!

Plus the fill flash will add a nice catchlight to her eyes.. make them look pretty!

 

[scorpion_tyr]

Try using center weighted metering and fill flash. Even with the pop up flash it'll properly expose your subject and the sky evenly most times.

 

[Dominantly]

Go out an hour before the sun sets, find an area like a tree in the grass, that has a clear view of the sun setting.There should be a nice warm light painting the scene, it's your big warm softbox. Trying shooting her at different angles to see what you get with contrast, etc.

 

[bazooka]

"Better" light is not the same as brighter light. The quality of the light on the second pic is actually quite good... it's soft on her face and you are even getting a separation light from the sun behind her. The problem is it is blurry, probably due to camera shake. You are shooting at 135mm on a 1.6 crop body so your effective focal length is 216mm. 1/200 is too slow unless you are very careful and using proper form or are leaning against something solid. You should have upped your ISO to 400 and shot at 1/400.

Also notice that the open sky light is coming down on her from mostly above. This is why the eyes are dark. If you set her back further against the foliage so that she is shaded from above, this will drop light levels, but it will mean that the light can only come from closer to the horizon. This will avoid the bright cheeks/dark eyes issue.

#1 you have the sky in the background so unless the subject is lit by the sun or underexposed, the sky will be very bright and distracting.

Overall, judging by composition and the motion blur in #2, I think it's a bit too early to be worrying too much about light quality. I think you would be better off focusing right now on learning more about how exposure works (the exposure triangle) and just try to shoot in the brightest light you can for the time being. That's just my opinion.

EDIT: Just read the other replies... I like TI's suggestion of shooting with direct sunlight but just before and during sunset. This will give you plenty of light at a pleasing angle, but the contrast is also well controlled.

 

[photo guy]

Try next to be in partial shade instead of full shade. This way the photo won't be too dark. Sometimes you can't win with mother nature. Natural light is still the best. Good Luck

 

[KmH]

Partial shade is also known as dappled light and most portrait photographers avoid it like the plague. The photos exposure can be adjusted for lower light levels.

Natural light offers the least amount of control for the photographer.

What you need is called open shade. With your subject in open shade, the bright blue or cloudy sky becomes your main light. Then you can use fill lighting effectively. Fill lighting can be from flash or from a reflector.

 

[paigew]

Thanks everyone for your advice. I forgot about using the built in flash as I have been trying to avoid using it. I will look into all the advice and try to figure out the 'open shade' and go out before sunset. I am trying to learn by practice, but it seems to not be going so well. For christmas I tried to take photos in Manual but they turned out dark if I didn't use flash even though I upped the ISO to 400 and had the apeture as high as it could go. I hope to take a class soon at the local arts center, but until then what should I do? Is there a book that has lesson plans or something .

Also, to tirediron. Thanks for the composition critique. Do you know of an example that 'up the nose' does work? Like do you have a bookmark I can look at. I appreciate your response because when I look at the photo I love it, and don't even notice the 'up the nose' view....I just picture her climbing around the playscape. So thats something I will be more consious of.

 

[Rephargotohp]

Shooting from below, only works when you want your subject to have a sense of power. That's why it is mostly used on Men and Athletes. It doesn't work well on Children or women...unless you want them to look powerful.

The problem is if you want to shoot natural light ( and you most certainly can and should, a flash is not always necessary) You have to work with in it constraints.

The Winter sun is actually one of the best times of year to shoot, The sun is lower in the the sky and as others have suggested shooting earlier or later is best. But don't put your subject in a situation your camera can't handle. The difference between her face and the sky is way too much dynamic range for your camera and so is a dark tree line. Look for a more neutral background and if you shoot higher. either her eye level or shooting down with her looking up, You probably will find a much better background, so that she is exposed well and no Blow out or or murky Dark backgrounds behind her.

You need to "see" quality light, not just light. That is the biggest hurdle for any photographer...some just never do...But first you have to know that that is what you need to do. You can't see, if you don't look

 

[ph0enix]

Is there a book....

You want to read Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson.

 

[skieur]

I would take a totally different approach. The blown out sky probably would be best handled with a neutral density filter. The light could be handled in a more natural way by a gold reflector which would warm up the cool colours as well. A software sunshine filter would make the cloudy shots into sunny day shots.

skieur

 

[paigew]

Thanks so much guys! I got my best so far photo today :mrgreen:. They kept coming out dark until I remembered the flash, I got about 5 then my battery died . This one was best even though I cut off part her arm. I used the al servo focusing for the first time, it seemed really slow but I think its because the power was 5 seconds away from dying. Also, is there a reason I couldn't get the shutter speed to go above 200 when the flash was on (manual)?

c&c/advice/tips

 

[KmH]

The flash worked pretty good. She is separated from the background.

Open shade:

Open shade - Bing

There is no substitute for learning the fundamentals of photographic lighting, which apply regardless the light source used.

 

[paigew]

Thanks Keith, this was a spur of the moment 'lets throw the ball for the dog...hold on let me grab my camera (with baby strapped to my back). But I am going to try and find open shade around my house. I just don't know the best strategy for convincing her to STAY in the open shade and face me .