Photo-shoot at Noon

[DiskoJoe]

I'm on the reading on the phone. I will update when I get on the computer. I'm I'm San Antonio, Texas. The last couple of days has been overcast with light rain. Will see how it's gonna be on Sunday. Also it's hard to find green settings here. Lol

Find a nice park.

 

[gerardo2068]

Im going to look for one. Thanks

 

[KmH]

The Sun is a lot higher in the sky at noon in San Antonio this time of year (winter), than it is north of I-80 up here in the upper tier states. Analemma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here in Iowa the Sun stays fairly low in the southern part of the sky at noon. Further north the Sun is even lower in the sky. Far enough north (above the Arctic Circle) the Sun never gets above the horizon and it's dark 24 hours a day in winter.

Look for a park that has open shade, and avoid dappled sunlight like the plague.

When using open shade, the bright sky is used as your main light. Any reflected or strobed light (flash) is used for fill or accent lighting.

 

[gerardo2068]

Interesting, I've never even heard analemma before. Thanks. Yeah and summer is a desert pretty much. I'm looking in to leaving this place (don't know when thats gonna happened)

 

[MReid]

Sounds like you don't have great knowledge about your equipment or flash.
Shoot with your 85 1.4. Set it on F4, iso 400.
Set your camera on spot metering.
Focus/meter off their faces, let the background blow if necessary.
It is not that difficult to find settings out of the sun with a nice undistracting background.
Try not to shoot in a green setting in the shade, white balance will be a problem.

Best option is to reschedule for an evening shoot with better light.....if you can.

I'm very interested in knowing how you can positively tell someone what ISO to shoot at without being there and knowing the exact lighting conditions and how they might dictate the shutter speed you'd have to use based on that ISO.

Midday shooting in the sun maybe 200 in the shade or cloudy 400 so 400 covers all of it. That works for anything F1.4 to f4 and somewhat beyond...years of experience, that is how.

Now if it is pouring down rain and or there is half eclipse on that day maybe it wouldn't work.....

 

[gerardo2068]

Help! I'm completely lost. I know how to take photo indoor and evening. But with direct sunlight I'm confused.

I'm shooting right now

So I place the person under the shade of a tree.
I meter the background and it says f4 /3200 ISO 200.

I set the flash to all three setting. TTL-BL, TTL and manual and in all 3 the flash was so underexposed.

In manual I start with 1/8 and nothing even 1/1 the subject was too dark.

SB-600 flash

 

[DiskoJoe]

Try a longer exposure. 1/3200 is too short. try like 1/250.

I took this in the shade around 1pm in may. Im in Houston so light would be similar around the same time of day.

f3.5 1/250 iso 200 no flash alpha 200 sigma 70-210mm @ 150mm

Black and White Floral by DiskoJoe, on Flickr

 

[gerardo2068]

I see. But it's not working out the background it's too blow out. There like one tree here lol. I wanted to balance both subject and background. I'm starting to get something. But quite sure yet of what's happening. Thanks. I'll keep practicing.

 

[KmH]

"Light advances, dark receeds" is a basic concept in the visual arts.

You usually want to try and make your subject somewhat brighter than the background.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

Help! I'm completely lost. I know how to take photo indoor and evening. But with direct sunlight I'm confused.

I'm shooting right now

WAT?

Like I said, put the sun to the back, meter for the shadows, ditch the flash. Let the background do whatever

 

[MReid]

Turn the flash off let the background blow expose for your subjects face. Keep the sun at her back.
Go home practice with flash....read up on flash sync. and how to adjust your flash power, fill flash and how to mix flash with ambient.

Using flash properly is not easy.

 

[sparks017]

I read up that using a reflector would be a good use to capture the natural light, but if you do not have a refelctor then using your flash as a fill light would be useful as well. I would recommend getting flash gels as well if you don't own any to have a control of what color your flash is putting off.

 

[gerardo2068]

Yeah it's hard for first time shoot. I shot with out flash. I blow out the background she exposed well. Im more confident with no flash i practice that a lot But I wanted to practice mix fill light.

Now using 50mm f4 on DX camera

Sometimes it feels like the 600 don't have too much reach.

I wanted full body portrait. And I set manual 1/1 I'm starting to see a pattern.

I meter for background to right exposure and sometimes I drop the background 1 and also 2 stops. At that point seems to look like the effect I want but she start to come out underexposed and the I get that ugly effect that you get when underexposing with flash

Thanks everybody. It helps.

 

[MReid]

are you shooting at your flash sync shutter speed
in full sun you are not going to get a lot of help from a 600

 

[gerardo2068]

I set it up to auto FP yeah probably because it's a 600.

But now it 5:00 pm and I have a very open shape from a building and not I'm back on track.

Everything it's coming out how I would like to. Everything it's balance. Background and subject.

I've been practicing a while and I'm better shooting indoors with bounce flash and after 5 pm.

But today was my fist time shooting at noon. It's hard.