Photo critique and touch-up requested

[gossamer]

gossamer, if I may, I'd like to offer a suggestion that may be really useful to you in future shots like this...

Thanks so much. It's always great to receive your input.

What did I do?

I turned on the flash and then dialed the flash exposure-compensation adjustment to "-1".

Perfect, I forgot about that option, and probably would have made the difference.

The reason I also dial the "flash exposure-compensation" (aka FEC) down to "-1" (sometimes I dial it down to -2/3) is because I don't want the flash exposure to "look" like a flash exposure. I want the sun to to be the main source of lighting. It is actually possible to use camera & flash settings that can over-power the sun and make your subject look brighter than the background.

I thought TTL was supposed to take care of that?

1) The built-in pop-up flash on any camera is not particularly powerful. It's ok as long as the subject is within perhaps around 10' from the camera (this varies depending on the ISO setting but you would not want to use a high ISO setting when shooting in full sun.) An external shoe-mounted flash is easier to work with because it can provide enough power.

Yes, it wasn't powerful enough in this case, and I had to use my SB700, which produced a great picture with the ISO and aperture really high, but then no DoF.

2) I don't always use this technique outside... I mostly use it for shooting human subjects when they are outside either (a) in strong mid-day sun (ideally a photographer prefers to wait for a better lighting conditions, but we do what we have to do.) and also (b) in situations where the subject is in full shade (perhaps under a tree) but the background is in full sun.

Yes, absolutely. I'm definitely going to practice this.

Perhaps I have the same confusion about FEC as I have with regular exposure compensation.

If I shoot in manual (I'm usually in aperture priority), and I adjust the exposure compensation down a stop, do I still want the exposure meter on my camera to read that it's exposed properly, or under-exposed?

In other words, does exposure compensation make sense when shooting in manual mode, or are you effectively already compensating for a proper exposure by shooting in manual in the first place?

When I shoot in manual and use the flash, I'm exposing for a picture without the flash. Then when I take the picture and the flash fires, it's overexposed. I don't understand how to expose the picture properly when using manual and the flash is involved.

 

[gossamer]

Guys, I took another shot at trying to improve the color and reduce the shadows, and this is what I came up with:

Dropbox - DSC3164_Regan_Adjusted_16x20.jpg

I think it's a great combination of the effects previously shown, perhaps with a more subdued style. I'd appreciate ideas on what you think of this one. Perhaps the water in the middle is a little too blue or unreal looking.

Anyway, headed to the beach tomorrow, and going to try the flash compensation settings and see what I can come up with.

 

[TCampbell]

The reason I also dial the "flash exposure-compensation" (aka FEC) down to "-1" (sometimes I dial it down to -2/3) is because I don't want the flash exposure to "look" like a flash exposure. I want the sun to to be the main source of lighting. It is actually possible to use camera & flash settings that can over-power the sun and make your subject look brighter than the background.

I thought TTL was supposed to take care of that?

TTL (iTTL on Nikon) tries to determine how much power is required in order to properly illuminate your subject given the camera's exposure settings (mostly it's ISO & Aperture and ignoring the shutter speed because flash is only a momentary burst of light).

If a flash is in "manual" mode, then full power means something different than when it's in iTTL mode. In manual mode, "full" power means the flash will fire at the maximum flash output possible for that model flash. You can also set it to 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, etc. But it's "manual" because it fires at those power levels regardless of your exposure settings. Presumably the photographer determines how much power is required for the shot.

In iTTL mode, the camera does not initially know how much power will be needed. So it attempts to determine how much power is necessary by metering the scene, firing a "pre-flash" at low power WHILE metering the scene again, and then comparing the non-flash and pre-flash metering differences. Based on how much difference it achieved with the pre-flash test, it decides how much power to use when the shutter is open -- and then the camera opens the shutter and takes the shot while firing the flash at the calculated power level.

FEC is relative to that iTTL calculated power level. If you set FEC to -1 then it means you'd like the flash to fire at only 50% of the amount of power which was calculated by the iTTL metering. -2 means you'd like to fire at 1/2 of 1/2 (or 25% power). Most cameras offer FEC ranging from -3 to +3. But 0 means you want it fire at the normal amount of power that was calculated (you don't want it to adjust.)

1) The built-in pop-up flash on any camera is not particularly powerful. It's ok as long as the subject is within perhaps around 10' from the camera (this varies depending on the ISO setting but you would not want to use a high ISO setting when shooting in full sun.) An external shoe-mounted flash is easier to work with because it can provide enough power.

Yes, it wasn't powerful enough in this case, and I had to use my SB700, which produced a great picture with the ISO and aperture really high, but then no DoF.

The "no DOF" is a different issue. Your camera has a mechanical shutter and it has two shutter doors (sometimes called "curtains"). When you take a shot, the first door slides open (usually from top to bottom - allowing light to reach the sensor), but the second door slides shut and ALSO from top-to-bottom. If the camera only had one shutter door then one edge of the image would technically get more light than the other edge.

These doors need time to open and close. When you shoot at high speeds (say, 1/1000ths sec) the first door only STARTS to open and the second door starts closing behind it -- with only a narrow slit exposed which sweeps across the sensor.

The "problem" with this sweeping slit is that if the flash fires, then only the area of sensor exposed when the flash fires will get the benefit of the flash and the rest of the sensor will not get the benefit of the light.

This means that in order to use flash, the first door has to open completely... then the flash can fire... and then the second door can close. This constrains the maximum shutter speed that your camera can use. I don't know your camera model, but most DSLRs have a maximum "flash sync" speed in the range of 1/160th to 1/250th (depending on the model.) Since that may be too much shutter exposure when attempting to shoot a low aperture value, it forces the camera to stop down the aperture to a smaller opening so that the camera can use a shutter speed that works with the flash.

But there are two alternatives...

One is to enable a mode called "high speed sync" (sometimes abbreviated HSS). This allows the camera to use a high shutter speed (only a slit is exposed which sweeps across the sensor) but the flash pulses rapidly so that each area of the sensor gets an even amount of light from the flash. There is a catch... since the flash has to fire multiple pulses of light, it cannot fire at "full power" otherwise it would need time to recycle for the next shot. This means you won't be able to shoot at great range like you can when it only needs to fire a single burst of light.

The second option is to use a neutral density filter. When you shoot with flash, you're really getting two light sources at once... one is the flash, but the other is the ambient light. The flash is momentary, but the ambient light continues to expose for as long as the shutter is open. Normally the camera limits the ambient light by stopping down the aperture... but if you use a neutral density filter then you block light via the filter so the camera can use a low (wide) aperture setting. This allows you to reduce light but STILL have a low enough aperture to get a shallow depth of field (and you can still use fill flash.)

In a daytime setting, the sunny 16 rule would allow for an exposure of ISO 100, 1/100th sec, and f/16. But you could trade a stop of shutter and aperture to make it ISO 100, 1/200th sec, and f/11. A 3-stop ND filter would bring that down to ISO 100, 1/200th sec, and f/4 (or a 4th stop would get you to f/2.8)

2) I don't always use this technique outside... I mostly use it for shooting human subjects when they are outside either (a) in strong mid-day sun (ideally a photographer prefers to wait for a better lighting conditions, but we do what we have to do.) and also (b) in situations where the subject is in full shade (perhaps under a tree) but the background is in full sun.

Yes, absolutely. I'm definitely going to practice this.

Perhaps I have the same confusion about FEC as I have with regular exposure compensation.

If I shoot in manual (I'm usually in aperture priority), and I adjust the exposure compensation down a stop, do I still want the exposure meter on my camera to read that it's exposed properly, or under-exposed?

In other words, does exposure compensation make sense when shooting in manual mode, or are you effectively already compensating for a proper exposure by shooting in manual in the first place?

When I shoot in manual and use the flash, I'm exposing for a picture without the flash. Then when I take the picture and the flash fires, it's overexposed. I don't understand how to expose the picture properly when using manual and the flash is involved.

Exposure Compensation (EC) and Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC) are two different things. In Manual (exposure) mode, EC doesn't make sense... the light meter tells you if it thinks you have a correct exposure. If you want to over or under-expose a shut, just adjust your settings to put the needle of the light meter where you want it (most cameras don't allow you to dial in EC when the camera is in manual mode.)

When you use fill flash, the normal exposure settings are adjusted for ambient light -- not for the flash. If you use iTTL then the flash will attempt to set itself to provide the correct amount of light given the exposure settings you chose in the camera. You should not get an over-exposed shot. If you set the FEC to -1 then you're asking the flash to fire at lower power (specifically 50% of the power that the camera would have used if you did not ask for any FEC.)

The flash (in iTTL mode) should not result in over-exposure when being used as a fill-flash in daylight shooting. Stops of exposure are exponential with each stop doubling the light of the stop before. This means a small amount of light can make a big difference in a very dark area. But that small amount of light makes almost no difference to the bright areas of your image (technically the difference is more than 0 -- but it's so insignificant that it's not noticeable in your exposure.