Photo-shoot at Noon

gerardo2068 · Jan 26, 2012

[/QUOTE]

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

Thanks that helped!

gerardo2068 · Jan 26, 2012

If you could give me some more advices it would help a lot!

gerardo2068 · Jan 26, 2012

Well after shooting this early afternoon I came back home and started looking at the photos. Wow I was all over the place, kind of frustrating~.

As I keep shooting and reading your posts I started to keep track of what I was doing. Some things started to come in to shape, now, I'm nowhere near to even being ok, but it's a learning experience.

I shoot many without flash and I can see how metering for the face and let the background do its thing helps to make good photos. Most of those where at f4 and /320 or less and ISO 200. They workout but I also want to learn about mixing flash and ambient light.

In the shadow,

For mixing light I was metering the background at /2000 or more. I tried to use TTL and TTL-BL but those settings seems to work base on if i'm doing pattern metering or spot metering so they were not giving steady results. So I switch to manual.

In manual mode pretty much I had to leave it at 1/1 power. If I shoot close up to the face it would work somewhat since I was still not getting steady results but more steady than before. If I wanted to do a full-body shot it felt that at /2000 or faster the SB-600 was not powerful enough.

In the open with sun behind was another whole issue. I don't know where is the correct place to meter. I meter in the background too? That would due extremely fast shutter.

I'm now watching a video in YouTube and the guy says that in the middle of the day I should better use reflector and leave the flash for later in the day.

If you could shed more of your experience and knowledge on this, I would appreciated it. Thanks.

gerardo2068 · Jan 26, 2012

gerardo2068 said:
Well after shooting this early afternoon I came back home and started looking at the photos. Wow I was all over the place, kind of frustrating~.

As I keep shooting and reading your posts I started to keep track of what I was doing. Some things started to come in to shape, now, I'm nowhere near to even being ok, but it's a learning experience.

I shoot many without flash and I can see how metering for the face and let the background do its thing helps to make good photos. Most of those where at f4 and /320 or less and ISO 200. They workout but I also want to learn about mixing flash and ambient light.

In the shadow,

For mixing light I was metering the background at /2000 or more. I tried to use TTL and TTL-BL but those settings seems to work base on if i'm doing pattern metering or spot metering so they were not giving steady results. So I switch to manual.

In manual mode pretty much I had to leave it at 1/1 power. If I shoot close up to the face it would work somewhat since I was still not getting steady results but more steady than before. If I wanted to do a full-body shot it felt that at /2000 or faster the SB-600 was not powerful enough.

In the open with sun behind was another whole issue. I don't know where is the correct place to meter. I meter in the background too? That would due extremely fast shutter.

I'm now watching a video in YouTube and the guy says that in the middle of the day I should better use reflector and leave the flash for later in the day.

If you could shed more of your experience and knowledge on this, I would appreciated it. Thanks.

Base on this information, could you give me advice on what I need to look for when shooting in this situation?

2WheelPhoto · Jan 26, 2012

Look and make sure that cam/flash is OFF of any auto or TTL mode first order of bizness, but i think you found that out

gerardo2068 · Jan 26, 2012

2WheelPhoto said:
Look and make sure that cam/flash is OFF of any auto or TTL mode first order of bizness, but i think you found that out

Yeah I figure that out. Thanks. But does this sound I'm on some kind of right direction ? Or I'm completely off??

2WheelPhoto · Jan 26, 2012

RIGHT direction.

Dude these outdoor shots aren't the best in the world by far of course but FYI to set up lighting I popped 3 or 4 shots into bright sky and set my shutter speed, then put my light on the stand and popped a few more and got my fstop right. had I owned my sekonic light meter that shows ambient/flash ratio, it'd have taken me 30 seconds to set up instead of 4 minutes

Then the self portrait to see if my cam would break:

gerardo2068 · Jan 26, 2012

Lol!

Well they look good.

But I'm not that bad when I shoot with flash at that time.

That's why starting to think that the small 600 flash is not the best tool for the middle of the day. Once 4pm came around I started to get better shots.

I'm getting a tall reflector tomorrow and practice with that during the middle of the day to see if I can get something.

2WheelPhoto · Jan 26, 2012

gerardo2068 said:
Lol!

Well they look good.

But I'm not that bad when I shoot with flash at that time.

That's why starting to think that the small 600 flash is not the best tool for the middle of the day. Once 4pm came around I started to get better shots.

I'm getting a tall reflector tomorrow and practice with that during the middle of the day to see if I can get something.

Looking forward to seeing the reflector pics. If I recall I had the best luck with using my SB-600 on the D7000 at 1/320th of a second with cam/flash in manual mode, with the SB600 doing all it can. But those shots above were with one cheap vivitar 285 in bare mode

Rephargotohp · Jan 26, 2012

If you are shooting in Auto FP (high speed sync) you really are not firing at full power since the flash has to fire multiple Times to avoid banding.

You would probably be better off shooting at sync shutter speed and turning off High speed sync.

However, You still will probably only get f/8 light at best out of that flash at max Power and not far from your subject. That may work in shade but won't work in full sun since you are battling f/16 light from the sun (@ISO 200 1/200) And don't use any diffusers because they will cut back power also

2WheelPhoto · Jan 26, 2012

Rephargotohp said:
If you are shooting in Auto FP (high speed sync) you really are not firing at full power since the flash has to fire multiple Times to avoid banding.

You would probably be better off shooting at sync shutter speed and turning off High speed sync.

However, You still will probably only get f/8 light at best out of that flash at max Power and not far from your subject. That may work in shade but won't work in full sun since you are battling f/16 light from the sun (@ISO 200 1/200) And don't use any diffusers because they will cut back power also

I was able to use regular sync of up to 1/320th (without the dark on the bottom of the frame from too fast shutter) with the SB600 and D7000 and ISO 100

gerardo2068 · Jan 26, 2012

Oh I see, yes I'm shooting auto FP. That makes sense. Yeah is not enough to take a full body shot with auto FP while correct exposing for background. (correcting exposure for background was putting me at /2000 shutter speed or faster. I was shooting at f4 almost all the time.

Well after all day in this forum reading all this and shooting today. I know I have learn new things.

I will go out tomorrow again a practice. Some more.

gerardo2068 · Jan 26, 2012

Rephargotohp said:
If you are shooting in Auto FP (high speed sync) you really are not firing at full power since the flash has to fire multiple Times to avoid banding.

You would probably be better off shooting at sync shutter speed and turning off High speed sync.

However, You still will probably only get f/8 light at best out of that flash at max Power and not far from your subject. That may work in shade but won't work in full sun since you are battling f/16 light from the sun (@ISO 200 1/200) And don't use any diffusers because they will cut back power also

Thank for this info!! The light bulb is starting to clic on in my head now! LOL. Things are starting to make sense.