Need advice on bright white backgrounds

[jrizal]

Hi to all! I am a noob using a D3100. Whenever I shoot a subject with a white background (i.e. white floor or wall under sunlight), the resulting shot has a bright background that seems to be overexposed. Often I shoot outdoors with an ISO value of 100 with Auto WB or Sunlight WB. To minimize over exposure of the background, I often increase the aperture value and decrease the shutter value. However, this darkens my subject and sometimes I resort to using fill flash. I've also tried adjusting the EV values but both do not necessarily give the results that I want (not overexposed backgrounds but with bright foregrounds/subjects). For seasoned photogs out there, are there any other ways to do this which I may have missed out? Your inputs and comments are most welcome. TIA.

 

[cgipson1]

Sounds like you are basically back lighting your subjects... and the only way to compensate for that, is to light your subject with either flash (recommended), or good reflector use (which might not be enough, depending on how bright the background is). You need to bring the level of light up on the subject to either match the bright background, or be slightly over the background.

 

[jrizal]

Well it seems fill flash is the way to go. I'll further experiment using a combination of adjusting flash comp, using a diffuser or maybe a bounce card. Thanks for pointing me to the right direction.