First off. I was going for that hazy back light look. High exposure behind the person. Her hazy. If I wanted her to be bright I would have turned her. How was I suppose to get that effect without turning her? Just a reflector? I didn't want her bright.
Well, was the background hazy when you took the shot?
There are limitations to what the photographer can achieve when it doesn't exist to begin with. We had one member who said their photos lacked dramatic skies. Sure'nuff! there wasn't a cloud in the sky when they took their shots. You can do a tremendous amount in post production these days but it really is easier to make sure you have the photo you want in the frame before you snap the shutter.
Why would I care to look at haze?
Your main subject was the model, not the background. What you've said infers you felt the background was more important than the model. If you want to meter the sky with the shot you've taken, you're going to have exposure issues with the rest of the image. That's why some situations best fit spot metering.
What's the most important thing to us, the viewer, in your shot?
In almost any photo of a human or animal, the viewer's eyes will go first to the face of the subject and more specifically to their eyes. Not the hazy sky.
Realize your camera cannot achieve the dynamic range of the human eye. What you see in the scene will be limited on the image by the capacities of the camera. No amount of megapixels or focus points will change that fact.
It would be somewhat difficult to make use of the HDR feature of your camera without risking subject movement between shots. Therefore, you need to make a few decisions and exposing for the sky and not for the subject is generally your worst decision. If you are going to use the sky for your metering, you rather need to make it obvious to the viewer this was a conscious decision on your part and not simply a mistake or a "I didn't know any better" result.
If you want to silhouette your subject, then you meter for the sky. If you want your subject properly exposed, it's probably not going to happen when the subject is placed against such a bright background. It's almost always acceptable to blow out the sky
if you properly expose the main subject. But that's a different thread.
Here's how you silhouete;
Google
Don't do that if you don't want a silhouette. Use the same principle but meter the subject, and more specifically, meter her face. This is how to use spot metering when you have a very bright background;
Google
Next, realize your camera can only work with what you place in front of it (and then not totally if you present the camera with excessive DR).
Placement of your subject can help the sort of shot you had in mind. Though, I think, you might want to study a bit more on good portrait techniques. You have very little highlight on her face which almost invariably means you have too much shadow on the rest of her face.
Had you placed your subject in a slightly different position relative to the light source, you might have come up with a more well exposed image.
Had you moved her to a location under some mixed shade, you might have come up with a more well exposed image.
Had you used a reflector to bounce some light into the shadow areas of her face, you might have come up with a more well exposed image.
Had you used a fill flash unit, you might have ...
There are several ways to make your situation work. Unfortunately, you haven't chosen any of them.
I can't tell you which solution you might have tried since I wasn't there and I wasn't seeing what you expected from your shot. I would, though, hopefully had tried something other than what you shot.
Did you review this shot on your camera after you took the photo? Did you check the histogram? The blown out areas are fairly obvious.
IF you want a brighter background, you must balance that amount of light on the front of the subject (unless your intent is for a silhouette).
There are multiple ways to go about this balancing act. Fill flash would have probably been my first go to had it been impossible to relocate the shot in a different spot or orientation.
A reflector will most often mean another person is on the shoot which makes it less available as an option unless you invest in far more equipment.
Consider one option which is to place the light source behind your subject and using a hand held reflector being held by the subject. Not always an answer but this is an option which can be selectively used when you are limited in resources. Make the reflector appear to be a book or photo or something the model is looking at and use it to bounce light onto her face. The lighting on the subject's face will then be fairly even and well distributed across her face which is a stylistic approach.
So, yes, a reflector (or two) could have been used to bounce some available light onto your subject's face. If you properly expose for the face in this sort of photo, the rest of the subject's body will be sufficiently lit.
If this shot turned out the way you envisioned it, then I'd say you have some work to do in understanding your camera's dynamic range and its metering system.
You ignored my question regarding your camera's histogram.
Do you know how to read the histogram?
Do you know how to adjust your exposure, or the entire shot in some cases, using the data provided by the histogram?
When dealing with scenes where high dynamic range is present - or simply the highlights on your subject's dark hair - you need to use the histogram to ensure you avoid blown out highlights.
How do you feel the shot turned out?
![[No title]](/data/xfmg/thumbnail/30/30879-16ad830465e571dee0a784c7fa122909.jpg?1734158876)
![[No title]](/data/xfmg/thumbnail/39/39475-7aec9114feceb7b698bcdbe5c9574f94.jpg?1734173569)
