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photographing in hard sunlight, with or without flash

June 13, 2008

photographing in hard sunlight, with or without flash

This is one of the toughest lighting conditions to deal with. Where I can, I try and position my subjects so that they are in shade, or at the very least their backs are to the sun. This way they are looking away from the bright light and less likely to squint and frown, and they will also have more even shaded light on their faces, with rim lighting around the sides.

But where you can’t position people and you have to deal with the lighting situation as it is, you have a few options:

You can get lucky with the angle so the features and details of most of the people are shaded, providing you with fairly uniform light on the essential parts of what you want to capture. Some parts of the scene will blow out, but hopefully nothing really relevant.

With this photograph, no flash was used. However, I did work things in my favor by shooting in the RAW format so that I have much more control over the image in post-production. I can more easily hold detail in the highlights while bringing up detail in the shadow areas.

(The examples in this posting assume that you are a solo photographer without the team of assistants to hold up large scrims and fill lights, but that you have to make do with what you have – a camera with a speedlight mounted on it.)

But if you’re stuck with full sun where part of the subject is in shade and the rest in sun, you have two options:

1. Use flash. Direct flash with no light modifier.
I would suggest staying at max sync speed to get the most range / power from your flashgun. Only go to high-speed sync flash if you really need that shallow depth of field or high shutter speed.

This image needed no work in post-production to look like this, and as far as I am concerned is a perfectly acceptable image of these two flower girls.

Here I used the histogram to make sure I don’t lose detail in the highlights, and then I added flash at -0.7 EV compensation. The flash in this instance is more than just a subtle fill-flash so I had to dial it up from the usual range of -3 to -2 EV where I keep fill-in flash.

Then you have another option.
2. Don’t use flash.
But then you have to accept one of two things that will happen.

a. the image is going to look poor because of a lack of shadow detail and because of the harsh contrast.

.
b. Or you can accept that the image without flash is going to need some work in Photoshop.
Here I created two JPGs from the RAW file, each at different exposures. Then I combined the two JPGs as layers in Photoshop and masked off certain areas so I could get detail in the shadows and retain detail in the highlights.

This does look good, but this does take time.

So there you have the choices.

Personally, I would be quite happy to accept the compromise of fairly hard fill-flash in this situation to bring up the shadow detail. Doing it this way and still controlling my exposure properly by using my camera in manual exposure mode gives me a very good image already during the actual moment of taking the photograph.

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38 Comments »

Neil,

Just curious re the first image up top – no flash was used – did you spot meter? Did you increase exposure to bring the shows up on the faces? Did you change the exposure comp to allow for severe strong backlighting? It’s a beautiful capture by the way.

Paul

Comment by Paul Hodgson — June 14, 2008 @ 9:42 am
Hi there Paul …

I could have spot-metered off any white dresses of guests beforehand and opened up my reading my +1.7 stops .. but instead I used the histogram method to make sure my exposures were good.

Since I shoot in manual, exposure compensation has no effect.
And this also meant that backlighting had no effect on my exposure.

The settings are simple as I chose them to be .. and that was based on the histogram readings. I did allow the highlights to blow out though. For if I had tried to maintain details in ALL the highlights, I would barely have had shadow detail.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — June 14, 2008 @ 9:43 am
Nice article, as usual. One thing I struggle with, especially attempting to transition into full Manual exposure mode from Av (maybe a crutch for me), is where to meter? I can’t meter the dess (in your example), I can’t meter the highlights, and the faces are too far to spot-meter (for me) — whenever I do so, I get wildly different readings. So, I’m left with center-weighted or evaluative metering, and I just feel that it’s not too accurate. One thing I tend to do it point to the ground (looking for grass), meter it, and either keep it or go -2/3ev from there.
What are your thoughts?
-Dave

Comment by Dave — June 14, 2008 @ 10:39 am
Dave ..

In a situation like this where there are such a wild mix of bright highlights and deep shadows, it is difficult to chose a specific tonal value to meter off. Then I simply use the histogram to get a basic reading, and then fine-tune it by looking at the back of my LCD.

It is very important for me though that I shoot in RAW.
If there are any errors (and they are easy to sneak in under pressure and in the heat and squinting in bright sunlight), that I might just have to rely on the flexibility of the RAW file to help me out in finessing the final image.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — June 14, 2008 @ 11:46 am
Thanks again Neil!

Comment by David Burridge — June 14, 2008 @ 2:17 pm
Even with an assistant I have found that if you always wait to get the lighting conditions modified just right the moment is gone. My thoughts are that you should have a strategy to deal with whatever comes your way then you won’t miss the moments that are to me the most important aspect of wedding/people photography. I have struggled with this situation myself and in the past have either bracketed my exposures or taken the long road in photoshop. Thanks to you I have recently ventured into the whole idea of fill flash, still no where near mastering it but moving forward all the time, armed with the knowledge from ‘planetneil’, thanks

Comment by Rachel — June 14, 2008 @ 7:49 pm
These two girls are so precious – it seems that no matter what strategies you use to modify the image, they remain beautiful. Your lesson was superbly detailed and ‘enlightening’.

Comment by dan gabel — June 15, 2008 @ 2:48 pm
Thanks so much for taking the time to post this article and the many others on your site. They are very well written. Not only listing the different options but showing pictures as a result of using each option was brilliant!

Comment by Rodney — June 16, 2008 @ 12:06 pm
Thanks for this topic. This is another area where I ran into problems in the past.

Comment by Stephen — June 16, 2008 @ 1:36 pm
I want to show one example of how I could position my subjects in relation to the sun when the sun is over-whelming. (This is but one of the possibilities, and of course this won’t work on every subject.)

Here I allowed everything that is sunlit to blow out, only retaining detail in the shaded areas. (I didn’t particularly care about keeping detail in the sunlit areas.) Doing it this way does give the image a more romantic feel since it isolates them in a flood of white space.

btw, no flash was used.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — June 16, 2008 @ 2:50 pm
Neil,

Thank you for replying; I thought as much and glad you confirmed my thoughts.

Cheerio
P

Comment by Paul — June 16, 2008 @ 5:41 pm
You mention that you shoot and check the histogram, then let some of the highlights blow out. How do you know you’re not generally overexposing the focus of the image too? Checking the histogram, for me, I can see where the highlights are. I can see that they might be in section 5, or blown out. However, if A LOT is blown out, then I can’t really tell if the rest is where I want it to be? How do you come to the right exposure just by checking the histogram? If you see a high stack at the far right, how do you know some of that isn’t detail you wanted back?
Your latest image, for example: So much of this couple would be shown as stacked to the right in the histogram. There is probably very little left in the back levels. How do you know when you’ve gone enough? Did you zoom on her face and spot that, then set it in Manual?
Thanks,
-Dave

Comment by Dave — June 17, 2008 @ 2:10 pm
Dave .. in that case I rely on the blinking highlights to tell me if I am way out of range, or within range of good exposure … and then rely on the latitude of RAW to pull me through.

It is difficult in bright sunlight to accurately read the camera’s LCD preview, and then I rely on the blinking highlights to tell me I am not blowing out the important parts of my subject. And any slack in correct exposure is then taken up in editing the RAW file.

It does seem a little ‘loose’ in how I choose my exposure settings, but doing it this way allows me to shoot faster and not lose to much time fretting about the exact exposure.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — June 17, 2008 @ 10:07 pm
In the following quote, what is the difference between max sync speed and high-speed sync flash?
“I would suggest staying at max sync speed to get the most range / power from your flashgun. Only go to high-speed sync flash if you really need that shallow depth of field or high shutter speed.”

Does flash power automatically increase with the increase of the sync speed?

Comment by Sidney — June 18, 2008 @ 11:49 am
Sidney ..

No, the flash’s power doesn’t automatically increase because of the change in shutter speed.

What does happen though, is that with the increase in shutter speed, your aperture becomes wider .. and THIS is what allows your flash to have greater range, and in effect, more power.

So raising the shutter speed has an indirect correlation to your output from your flash. (This is obviously only true when working with available light and flash, and wouldn’t be true for studio photography.)

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — June 18, 2008 @ 10:10 pm
Sidney, in response to your question, max sync speed is the highest speed that a mechanical shutter will sync with a flash, on most cameras 250/s although some consumer cameras achieve 500/s with the use of an electronic shutter. A higher sync speed allows a higher shutter speed which in turn allows a larger aperture. This allows more flash to be captured by the camera so the flash unit does not have to work as hard, which in turn translates into greater flash range.

The high speed sync flash I believe Neil is referring to is high speed FP mode (I don’t know what it is called on Canon cameras) which allows the camera to sync at any speed above 250/s. This normally has the effect of significantly reducing flash range, although I am having amazing results using this mode with a D300 and an SB600 flash. It doesn’t seem to be taxing the flash at all, almost an instant recycle.

Comment by Christian — June 18, 2008 @ 11:08 pm
Hi Neil, another great article, thanks for sharing your experience again!
I was wondering… In such situation wouldn’t be better or easier just to take the photo in RAW and then make the edition?

Comment by Omar — June 19, 2008 @ 5:24 am
Omar ..

One of the examples actually do show the result of editing the RAW file, as opposed to using flash.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — June 19, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
To comment on what Christian said I use the FP high speed sync all the time for this situation. The problem is that the smaller the aperture the less the range of the flash. Therefore to kill the shadows you need full power flash. You are after all competing with the sun.

So I generally try a test exposure at f4 or so then set the appropriate shutter speed for 1/2 stop or so under exposure (spot on subject face)then blast the flash full manual in FP so my shutter speed could be 1/2000. The flash is going full pop so it does take full time to recycle. The “magic” is that the FP mode makes the flash fire several times to get exposures across the shutter as it moves.

My experience is that it is a waste to try anything other than full power manual when doing this and then to adjust exposure accordingly. The downside is the “magic” decreases the flash range considerably. With iso100 SB800 at f4 1/250 is good to 7.6 meters at the 1/1600 that you will need to get the correct ambiant exposure the range is 1.4 meters. Stopping down decreases range as well so there is no correct answer (1/640@f6.3) is 1.4m range.

A work around is to fire the flash full power with the PC and utilze only the part of the image that is not cut off by the shutter. To do this you may have to turn the camera upside down. This requires lots of experimenting and I have not yet done this at an event. However it does work. And will give you the 7.6M range.

As usual however Neil has multiple ways of accomplishing this and I learned alot from this post.

Comment by Robert Woudenberg — June 20, 2008 @ 7:43 am
Hi Neil, I have a question for you/all. What metering mode do most use in harsh sunlit situations. Spot, center weighted, partial, evaluative? And when using fill flash are you metering on highlights (white dress) and adjusting flash for the darks.

Thanks

Comment by Dave S — July 11, 2008 @ 2:10 pm
Hi there Dave …

This previous comment should answer your questions.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — July 11, 2008 @ 8:19 pm
on the canon 580exII when shooting in ettl doesn’t the camera meter the scene and reconize it as fill flash and compensate automatically? That’s actually one question I”ve been trying to figure out.

Comment by rodney — July 23, 2008 @ 6:48 pm
Rodney .. in my experience, this doesn’t happen to the extent I would like it, which is why I most often dial my FEC down for that touch of fill light from the flash.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — April 7, 2009 @ 10:03 pm
Thanks Neil, love your blog and insights.

I too like to use the LCD screen to judge expose. My problem however, in this lighting scenario is, I can’t see bugger all on the screen. How do you overcome this issue.

Peter

Comment by Peter Durk — July 2, 2009 @ 10:46 am
Hi there Peter …

Check my reply earlier on in this thread to Paul and Dave. In bright light I rely on my histogram and the blinking highlights, and the latitude of the RAW file to pull me through.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — July 2, 2009 @ 2:12 pm
Neil,

What is your white balance setting in the above outdoor pictures (and is it different if you are using direct flash or fill-flash)?

Daylight?

Thanks,

Les

Comment by Les — July 25, 2009 @ 8:48 am
Les, my white balance is usually Cloudy when using flash, or when the subject is turned away from the sun .. such as in the photograph at the top.

But I often adjust the WB anyway as part of my usual editing of the RAW file.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — July 29, 2009 @ 11:56 pm
Hi Neil

Thanks for your great sites!

Scenario: Shoot is on bright sunny day – Nikon D200 – 12 subjects positioned in shade with their backs to sun – will need to fill flash. But with shutter speed locked at 1/250 (SB800), what do I do to the aperture (Nikor f2.8 lens, 24-70mm) to get them all in focus?

Please help

Comment by Lydia — September 22, 2009 @ 7:19 pm
Lydia .. with that scenario, you’d set an aperture to expose correctly for your subjects, either by:
1. allowing the edges of their clothing and hair to blow out and give you rim lighting, and adding a bit of fill-flash, or
2. using flash as a main source of light (ideally off-camera and diffused by something like a large softbox).

With either of those options, on a bright sunny day, you’ll most likely end up with an aperture of at least f5.6 for their shaded side. And that should be enough DoF .. unless you have them in rows of two .. then f8 or such.

But a DoF calculator would give you more specific details here.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — September 25, 2009 @ 9:12 am
1 Neil, thanks, I Yahooed for DoF calculators, but this is a real can of worms! Does one do these calculations only for large groups ,or other very special circumstances? Does one actually need to calculate the depth of field before one takes every photograph? Is that why I sometimes get slightly blurred photos in spite of the focus indicator showing in the view finder, because I don’t do these calculations?

2 Then I’ve been struggling with on camera flashing, like most – I’ve read all your posts on the vast subject, much appreciate your knowledge, but – if one uses the blinking highlights screen, why can’t one take a test shot with the speedlight actually working, at 1/250 shutter speed, fiddle with the aperture, and maybe ISO, and adjust until the highlights don’t blink any more? Why does one have to first determine a non-flash exposure, then under-expose by a stop, then switch on the speedlight?

Please, would appreciate help.

Comment by Lydia — October 5, 2009 @ 4:00 pm
Lydia .. here is a short article I wrote on depth-of-field. It might be of help.

I can’t comment why some of your images might be blurry, since without seeing an image, it could equally well be due to camera shake and subject movement.

Now, about your flash photography question.
Under-exposing the ambient light by roughly a stop, and then adding flash is but ONE method out of a variety. You can’t distill all the scenarios you will encounter into just one method. You have to adapt.

About the blinking highlights … this would work if you only took into account your subject, and your subject had areas which were white or near-white. You can’t summarily decide on exposure based on blinking highlights in your background. Exposing for your subject is usually your prime decision in how you are going to set your camera (and flash, if you are using flash.)

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — October 5, 2009 @ 4:06 pm
“Here I allowed everything that is sunlit to blow out, only retaining detail in the shaded areas. (I didn’t particularly care about keeping detail in the sunlit areas.)”
- referring to photograph above, of couple against white background.

Could you explain how you “allowed” the background to blow out, please Neil – what did you actually do to achieve the effect – what was your line of thought? So that I can experiment with the method, not trying to copy your exact aperture, etc – but so that I would be able to folow the same reasoning.

Many thanks

Comment by Lydia — October 5, 2009 @ 4:11 pm
Hi Lydia,

Neil simply did not use ‘correct’ exposure [full sun, ISO 100, 250th f11] but I suspect he simply opened up his aperture to say around f8 or even f7.1, which means it was overexposed [on those settings] by a stop+.

The wording ‘allowed’ simply means deliberately overexposing, and since the kids faces were in shade, they benefited from that ‘overexposure’, not too dark.

Adrian

Comment by AdrianK — October 5, 2009 @ 10:11 pm
In the top image, the two flower-girls aren’t over-exposed, but are correctly exposed. (Barring some areas which are lit by direct sunlight.)

It becomes essential when thinking of exposure metering, to think of how you would expose correctly … and in that top image I did not over-expose. The shadow areas of the two flower girls – the predominate areas of the photo – are correctly exposed.

Lydia, I allowed the background to blow out because, without using additional lighting, I could only expose for certain areas … and other areas had to fall where they may … and in this case, sunlit areas would blow out.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — October 5, 2009 @ 10:50 pm
“About the blinking highlights … this would work if you only took into account your subject, and your subject had areas which were white or near-white. You can’t summarily decide on exposure based on blinking highlights in your background.”

Thanks for your wonderful answers, but please help me figure out the blinking highlights issue – histograms are simply beyond me – how do you know, when looking at the histogram, that any blown-out detail shown running up on the left, are caused by over-exposure somewhere on the subject, and not by the over-exposed background? It sounds to me as if this spike on the left of the histogram is ignored if it is caused by, for instance, the bright sky behind the subject? Can one not do the same for the blinking highlights – as long as there’s no blinking on the subject – ignore the blinking in the background? I just don’t understand histograms and would so much like to work with the blinking highlights instead…?

Comment by Lydia — October 9, 2009 @ 9:01 pm
Lydia, you can only really use the histogram in that way – judging your exposure by the distance the falling edge of the graph appears from the edge of the display .. or how the histogram spikes .. IF you are looking at an image which ONLY contains your subject.

Go over this article again, where I explain how I use the histogram to gauge my exposure for a constant light source (ambient light or manual flash), but making a test exposure of my subject, and then going by the brightest relevant tone.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — October 10, 2009 @ 2:01 am
Hello Neil

Could you please advise me the situatione when i need to use High Sync Speed(FP) and when not to use it?

Thanks
Anoop

Comment by Anoop nair — November 4, 2009 @ 9:45 am
Anoop ..

Do you need a high shutter speed (and not maximum output from your speedlight), then go to HSS.

Do you need a wide aperture (and don’t need maximum output from your speedlight), then go to HSS.

Do you need a lot of power from your speedlight (especially when working in bright conditions), then stay at maximum flash sync.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — November 4, 2009 @ 12:08 pm