Love of my life

[ElectricHarmony]

this is a very nice shot, portrays him well. My only thoughts is that a fill in flash would have helped wonders for the shadows on him.....

Thank you so much! I'm guessing it's time to get a fill in flash. How much are we looking at?

 

[markc]

Thank you so much! I'm guessing it's time to get a fill in flash. How much are we looking at?

It's one of the few things that I think the on-camera flash is good for. A lot of cameras let you adjust the flash output. My Canon 10D has flash compensation of -2ev to +2ev. Set it so that flashes with less power than normal, and your subject will be lit mainly by the daylight, but have the shadows "filled in" by the camera's flash. You'll have to experiement with it to get used to how much to use for what situation.

 

[mysteryscribe]

fill flash is a good thing one of the best, but back in the day... god I love being old... not only do you get to give advice nobody wants, you get a discount most places too.

Anyway the alternative to fill flash was to read the light in the shadow side, set your camera for that then go shoot the whole picture. If it was a great difference, you might want to split the difference. We (old farts) did it that way for years. Its a darn site more trouble and some of the newer less expensive cameras wont do it at all, but it is an option.

I know hopelessly out of date...where did I put that pinhole

 

[markc]

I think that works if you don't have a flash, but even film has only so much range it can capture at one go. You can move that range up and down, but fill helps to fit everything into that limit. I personally avoid flash and almost never use it, but I don't usually shoot in direct sun, either. There are times you just can't avoid it, though.

 

[saulmr]

Cool shot, love the pose.

 

[Lensmeister]

Great shot ...... Balboa Park is a lovely setting as well ....

 

[ElectricHarmony]

It's one of the few things that I think the on-camera flash is good for. A lot of cameras let you adjust the flash output. My Canon 10D has flash compensation of -2ev to +2ev. Set it so that flashes with less power than normal, and your subject will be lit mainly by the daylight, but have the shadows "filled in" by the camera's flash. You'll have to experiement with it to get used to how much to use for what situation.

Ahhh I see. I guess this is going to take a lil research:greenpbl: thanks for the reply!

 

[ElectricHarmony]

fill flash is a good thing one of the best, but back in the day... god I love being old... not only do you get to give advice nobody wants, you get a discount most places too.

Anyway the alternative to fill flash was to read the light in the shadow side, set your camera for that then go shoot the whole picture. If it was a great difference, you might want to split the difference. We (old farts) did it that way for years. Its a darn site more trouble and some of the newer less expensive cameras wont do it at all, but it is an option.

I know hopelessly out of date...where did I put that pinhole

LOL I'll admit to being quite a bit lost here

 

[ElectricHarmony]

Thank you so much Saulmur and Lensmeister! :hug:

 

[markc]

LOL I'll admit to being quite a bit lost here

He was talking about how you could expose for the face so that the shadowed part wouldn't be dark. Since so much of the scene was so bright, the camera exposed for that. If you manually set the camera for a lower exposure, the shadow would be well lit, but then the sunny parts would be too bright. The other option would be to pick an exposure somewhere inbetween, in which case neither would be perfectly expose, but it might be a decent compromise. This is an alternative way to deal with these situations if you don't have a flash.

I'll just pick some numbers, but say you have a scene like this where there is bright sun and deep shadow. Frame what you see in the viewfinder so that only sunlit area is showing. Say the reading is 1/1000 at f3.5. Now frame it so that you only see shadowed area (by walking up and zooming in on his shirt, say). Let's pretend that the reading for that is 1/125 at f3.5. That's three stops difference (125->250->500->1000) (I don't know if that's three stops in the image, I'm just using it as an example.)

The camera usually will take an average to determine it's exposure setting, but since there's a lot of light in the image, it will probably go towards that side. It might expose for the full 1/1000. Having something white in full sun in the frame can really goof up the meter, especially if it's big. If you wanted to expose for shadows, you would choose 1/125. Or you could pick 1/250 or 1/500, which would expose the shadows better than the default, but not get too crazy bright in the highlights.

 

[bogleric]

The good news is that your 350D built in flash is capable of being configured as a fill in flash.