# Shooting into the Sun/Bright backgrounds



## PhotoJunkieJen (Nov 21, 2008)

Hey guys!
I was hoping you could help me out. 
I'm wanting to learn to proplerly expose a subject with a bright background... but I don't want the subject to be silhouetted and I don't want to blow out the background with my fill in flash.
Any ideas about how to better expose the shot? 
How can I shoot into the sun without killing the sky with a flash... or leaving my subject merely a silhouette.

I know I can use some sort of filter for nature shots... beaches, mountains, etc. But what about when you have people as your subject and a bright sky as your background?


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## davebmck (Nov 21, 2008)

Your flash won't affect the sky at all.  You should expose for the sky and let your flash properly expose the subject.


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## PhotoJunkieJen (Nov 21, 2008)

So, on manual, meter the background and fill in flash for the foreground? 

This type of scenario is the best example I can give, by the way. 
There's a pretty beach behind them, ,but you'd never know it 

I filled in flash so faces would be properly exposed. But then the background looks so blown out.


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## davebmck (Nov 21, 2008)

Exactly.  In that picture, you would meter for the sky or beach and set your exposure for that.  If your using ttl metering for your flash, it should automatically set the flash power to expose the subject (the people in this case).


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## ANDS! (Nov 21, 2008)

In your situation, even shooting at your highest sync speed for flash, would most likely not bring that beach in line.  What you want in this situation (if you want the beach in the shot) is to use your cameras High Sync mode (if it has it) so that you can shoot at 1/2000 shutter speed (or whatever speed you need), and let your dedicated flash (High Speed isn't possible with on camera flash) expose the folks inside the restaurant.

This works whether you are indoors or out.


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## Big Mike (Nov 21, 2008)

Firstly, you can't blow out the sky with your flash.  The built-in flash on most cameras, has a range of maybe 20-30 feet max.  A good hot-shoe flash might be a couple hundred feet.  

The exposure of the sky is controlled by the aperture, the shutter speed and the ISO.  

I think I know what you are trying to do...
Firstly, you need to meter for the sky.  You want an exposure that won't overexpose the sky, maybe even under expose it a little bit, to bring out the deep colors.  Depending on how bright it is, this will probably mean using a rather fast shutter speed and a rather small aperture.  

Now, at these settings, your subject will probably be a silhouette...so you want to use your flash to light them up.  With an SLR camera, there is a 'max sync speed', which is the fastest shutter speed that will work properly with flash.  1/200 is a common max speed for modern DSLR cameras.  So you would be limited to that shutter speed (1/200 in our example).  This might mean that your exposure for the sky might be 1/200 and F16.  
The smaller the aperture, the more flash power you need...and at F16, you need a lot of flash power, especially if your subject isn't very close to the flash.  A built-in flash probably wouldn't cut it past 2 or 3 feet.  

So to do this, you may need a rather powerful flash.  I do this with my Canon 430EX and it sometimes isn't enough powerful and I wish that I had a 580EX.  

So it really depends on how bright it is, how you want the sky to be exposed, how far away your subject is and how powerful your flash is.

Another thing you can try, is to use a reflector to reflect some light back onto the subject.  The good part is that you don't need to worry about the max sync speed and can just set your exposure how you want.  

Now, I should also mention that some flash units have a 'High speed sync' mode, which allow them to work with much higher shutter speeds.  I've used mine at up to 1/8000.  The flash does this by pulsing the light very quickly...like a strobe light.  The problem is that you loose a whole lot of range....so unless you are very close to the subject, you are better off sticking with the max sync speed.

So what camera/flash/gear do you have?


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## itsajeepthing (Nov 21, 2008)

thanks for the opportunity to learn something new - great topic!! :study:


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## iriairi (Nov 21, 2008)

Not my thread, but thanks BigMike. Have you ever thought of teaching? Formally, I mean. And if you already do, well, lucky students.


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## PhotoJunkieJen (Nov 21, 2008)

My gear is pretty basic. A 10 MP Rebel XTi and the lens that came with it. 

Unfortunately, I have far more photography desire than I have knowledge and money for gear. 

I've looked at 430 externals for Christmas, but we shall see, I guess.


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## TwoRails (Nov 21, 2008)

Good post.  Good question, and good and informative answers.


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## manaheim (Nov 21, 2008)

I learned something today!

(well, I probably should have know this, but I didn't damnit, so I learned something!)


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## PhotoJunkieJen (Nov 22, 2008)

So, meter for the sky, use a fast shutter and and flash to light up your subject (possibly an external if Santa is feeling generous this year)... I think I can do that.


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## davebmck (Nov 22, 2008)

Yes, but please note as stated above that you can probably not set your shutter speed above your sync speed (likely 1/200-1/250) with your built in flash.  You will need to get the external flash to shoot high speed sync.


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## PhotoJunkieJen (Nov 22, 2008)

So I did some googling and you are correct... 1/200 is the tops. Hmm, I guess I better make sure I'm on Santa's good list this year 

Dude, I see you have the sigma 10-20, by the way. Totally jealous!


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## pongerts (Nov 22, 2008)

great topic! and great teachers! I just came across the thread and I learned something too! 

Thanks guys! Thanks TPF!


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## epp_b (Nov 22, 2008)

> So you would be limited to that shutter speed (1/200 in our example). This might mean that your exposure for the sky might be 1/200 and F16.


Keep in mind that, if you're shooting people, you'll probably want to isolate them from the background.  Shooting at f/16 is going to give you a huge depth of field, making for a distracting background and making it difficult to avoid nasty merges (pictures where it looks like a tree in the background is growing out of the subject's head, for example).  You'll need to use neutral density filters instead when you want a wider aperture for a soft background with a sharp subject.  These will darken the frame the same as a smaller aperture, but without affecting depth of field and causing diffraction.


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## davebmck (Nov 23, 2008)

PhotoJunkieJen said:


> Dude, I see you have the sigma 10-20, by the way. Totally jealous!


Yep, nice sharp lens.  I shot over 800 pics last June with it on vacation in AZ & UH.  I was the perfect lens for that.


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## MikeBcos (Nov 23, 2008)

In these situations, if my flash isn't powerful enough I use a slave unit on my hotshoe flash then either put it on a mini tripod closer to the subject or just get someone to hold it. That way when the camera's flash fires it triggers the closer unit and the ttl metering takes care of the exposure for me.


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## PhotoJunkieJen (Dec 3, 2008)

So I thought I'd revive this topic with a slightly different twist.
Originally, I asked about properly exposing a background... and using fill in flash to illuminate people or other sort of foreground subjects.

What steps you would you take if you were shooting into the sun and wanted to illuminate, say, a large field or mountain... or some sort of scenery where I flash may not do the job? 

I'm presuming some sort of filter would be required?

I'm taking a trip south in a few days and want to get the most photo wise out of my trip.


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## Big Mike (Dec 4, 2008)

> What steps you would you take if you were shooting into the sun and wanted to illuminate, say, a large field or mountain... or some sort of scenery where I flash may not do the job?


You need to consider the dynamic range of the scene and what you camera is capable of.  If you are shooting into the sun, it will be extremely brighter than anything else, especially a landscape.  Typically, you would need to decide which parts of the scene are more important to you, and expose for that...leaving other parts to be blown out or lost in shadow.

You can use a split or graduated filter to block some light from the brighter part of the scene.  Landscape photographers have been using these filters for a long time.  They work great when the horizon is fairly flat, but not so well with mountains etc.  It's better to use square filters for this, rather than round, so that you can control where the split/grad is.  

Another thing you can do, is to take multiple shots at different exposures.   This way you can exposure for the different parts of the scene. You can then use software to combine the images and take the parts that you want.  There are some 'automated' processes for this, and it's often called HDR (high dynamic range).  Or you could just manually cut out/mask off the parts that you want.


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## gsgary (Dec 4, 2008)

When i went on a Canon fill flash coarse some years ago they said the best way to use the Canon 430ex/580ex ect in very bright light was to shoot on program
This shot was actually shot mid day in bright light i tried to make it look like early evening but use a bit too much flash, i underexposed the sky by about 2 stops


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## confused_in_the_darkroom (Dec 5, 2008)

what about takin two pictures if you have time? take a picture exposed to the person and then one to the sky, then ps it together?


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## ksmattfish (Dec 5, 2008)

To help get the shutter speed down if you don't have high speed sync use a polarizer and/or ND.  Even with high speed sync I use a pol for outdoor portraits.  I haven't figured out how to make color like that in Photoshop.

I can't remember where I saw it, Strobist.com or someplace, but there was a cool demonstration of a 3 flash set-up for bright light, outdoor portraits.  There was a flash on each side of the subject set to normal exposure, and a flash on the camera set to -2 stops.  The camera itself was set to -1 stop.  So it slightly underexposes the background, and the on camera flash adds the fill.  It was a slick look.


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