Is this hi key photography

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Hi there I was wondering if anyone could help with what camera settings to use to achieve this bright beach look. I have a canon 5d and 70-200 usm f2.8 lens
 

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Looks very over exposed to me with severely blown out highlights.
 
Overexposure ≠ high key.

High key is typically using a lot of light to flood the scene/subject in order to raise the overall exposure up as well as to start to really brighten up the shadows.

BTW, it's against forum policy to post images that aren't yours.
 
No, this is simply over-exposed. High-key photography is a properly exposed, shadowless, or nearly so, subject, with [normally] a bright, white background, and the whole image having an overall very low contrast ratio. This image is quasi-high-key, that is, it has the bright white background and a relatively low contrast, but is not completely shadowless.

Kelsey%20(4).jpg
 
Do u know how to achieve it? What kind of settings? I've tried but looks dull not bright and airy like these
 
It's not a setting on the camera.... it's using and controlling light.

It's a lot easier to do with the proper equipment inside a studio.... you have total control. Outside, you're dealing with a rotating earth, clouds, wind, bugs, backgrounds....
 
Do u know how to achieve it? What kind of settings? I've tried but looks dull not bright and airy like these
It's almost impossible to do without some equipment. Ideally you use a four light set-up, two lights cross-lighting the background and two lighting the subject. You can do with the three (my setup above) and if very careful with only two, but it's difficult.
 
this is not quite high key either, but it was using a two light setup with a white muslin backdrop.
you really need a pretty controlled space with multiple lights to do high key properly.

P2150026 by pixmedic, on Flickr
 
As mentioned already, "Hi-Key" is when the whole is image is overall sort of bright, but specifically it's when you purposely match (key) the background to parts of the subject. Usually, you will match the tone of the person's clothing, to the background. This has the effect of making the clothing sort of blend in with the background....which in turn, should make the person's face stand out more, which is the point.

Keying is usually done to help direct the viewer's eye where we want it to go. If it's a portrait, you want the viewer to look at the subject's face. We do that by making the face contrast with the background and the clothing/accessories etc.

Hi there I was wondering if anyone could help with what camera settings to use to achieve this bright beach look. I have a canon 5d and 70-200 usm f2.8 lens

I actually don't think that your question/issue has anything to do with 'high key'...but it's probably a metering/exposure issue.

The hidden truth is that cameras are designed to get exposures wrong...as least if you follow the recommendation from the camera's meter (use auto mode without correction).

It's a fairly in-depth topic, but the gist of it is that that camera's meter is designed to give you correct exposure, only when you meter on something that is 'middle grey' (tone, not color). This means that if you are shooting in a bright scene (like the beach), the camera's meter will see all of that brightness and in turn recommend less exposure than you should have. The result is that your photos in bright scenarios, come out underexposed. Part of the reason is that the camera doesn't know that you want to expose for the people and not the background (or mostly the people and less the background).

So to get photos like the examples (well exposed subject, over exposed backgrounds), you need to do something extra. In manual exposure mode, you would need to dial in exposure that is higher than the zero on the meter. In any of the auto modes, you would need to use exposure compensation and probably auto exposure lock as well. (it's easier in manual).

Another way you could do it, would be to use a grey card or a hand held incident light meter. But once you really understand metering and know how to 'trick' your camera into getting correct exposures, you don't need the extra meter or the grey card.

Here is a blog post on 'How to use a grey card'. It's a good example of the situation we have here.
 

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