PaulSanchez
TPF Noob!
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2014
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- 11
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- Location
- New York, NY
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Hi everyone, i'm getting much better at photography, partly due to the guidance and advice i've received from this forum and other fellow photographers. I'm always trying to improve my shots, and I've finally booked a few paid shoots recently. What I'm having trouble with is shooting full manual and getting the right exposure. Shooting at full auto is never an issue. After this I stepped it up to Aperture priority, and that's been alright, but I was told to really master the exposure, I need to shoot in full manual, especially if I plan to use strobe flashes. When shooting a model against a sky, the background is always white. It does not look like a sky. But when I try to expose properly for the sky, it looks great, but now the model is too dark, almost like a silhouette. I was told that I need to master flash to expose the model and still get the background looking good, but strobe flashes are a bit too pricey for my budget right now. Is there any other way? I have a speedlite hot shoe flash. When I place a model facing the sun, I can shoot with natural light using just my camera. I can figure this out because it's just trial and error with my settings. I usually have my shutter fixed at around 1/400, ISO 100 (as low as possible for little noise), and I just adjust my aperture as needed. The results are great, except that the model will squint from the sun, so I have to count to 3 and take the photo so she can keep her eyes open. But when I turn the model around so the sun is behind her (i'm looking into the sun), I can't seem to get it right. What are the best camera settings for this? Is it possible to do this without flash? If not, will just my speedlite work? I've tried, but the results are never amazing. I feel like the background sky/sun should be more vivid and bold (how I see it with my eye), and the model should really pop and have a glow to her, but the photos just look really flat, and sometimes my lens struggles to focus when I'm facing the sun. I'm able to achieve better photos when it's early in the morning around sunrise, or later in the day around sunset. But it's still not the look I want, it's lacking the "wow" factor. My goal is to get this type of result and reach this level:
Please help. Thank you.
Please help. Thank you.
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