![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/models\/tia\/NV2_8952.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Many of the questions I get on the Tangents blog\u00a0relate to balancing flash with available light, and I want to pull it all\u00a0together into a single article.<\/p>\n
The questions often revolve around metering for the ambient light, and how to balance flash with the ambient light. Tied in with this, is how to make the decision about which camera settings are the best. It’s a juggling act, balancing all the factors quickly enough … and still being able to deliver solid photos.<\/p>\n
The answer<\/strong> to the questions about how to balance flash and ambient light, is often along the lines of “it depends”. \u00a0It really depends on: Now that all sounds quite vague, and doesn’t help if you don’t even quite know where to start. \u00a0But, let’s\u00a0look at one specific image, and analyze what our options are, and see if we can make sense of\u00a0it all …<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As I mentioned in the recent article on effective on-location portraits<\/a>, How do you know if it is visually pleasing? Well, that’s open to interpretation, and it is what makes every photographer unique. However, a good guideline in terms of composition, is to eliminate anything that is distracting or doesn’t add to the final image. \u00a0Look at the edges of your frame. \u00a0What you include is just as important as to what you exclude. \u00a0Most often, it’s the better decision to simplify the composition. \u00a0Eliminate clutter.<\/p>\n .<\/span><\/p>\n When I work on location with a model or a couple, I take care to position them so that they are in even light. \u00a0It’s just easier if there are no hard shadows across their face, or strong dappled light, for example. \u00a0It’s just easier to work with. \u00a0 If you’re more adventurous and have a specific vision that you’re chasing … and you need (or can work with) strong uneven lighting … then great. \u00a0But a simpler approach where we control the light that falls on our subject, is easier to work with. \u00a0With our options simplified, it becomes easier to balance flash and ambient light.<\/p>\n With our subject now positioned in front of an interesting \/ complementary \/ neutral background … and our subject not that unevenly lit … we start with the background.<\/p>\n We could work with handheld meters, and meter the light in the background. \u00a0But this would be impossible with a background like we have here – dappled sunlit leaves. \u00a0Much easier, is to use your camera’s built-in meter. \u00a0Now you have to decide how you want your background to appear. \u00a0Do you want it over-exposed to an extent? \u00a0Maybe we want a summery airy feel to it. \u00a0Or we’re looking for a high-key effect. \u00a0Or we want to over-expose by such an extent that we lose detail in a distracting background. \u00a0The choice really is yours.<\/p>\n In the example above, I looked through the viewfinder, and let the meter show over-exposure by +0.7 stops. \u00a0I could’ve chosen a zero reading, or I could’ve blown out my background even more. \u00a0Or under-exposed it. \u00a0In this case, I liked the background to be slightly brighter than a zero reading would’ve given.<\/p>\n The image above was one that I took during a personal workshop<\/a>. \u00a0As a comparison, here is another photograph, taken by Natalie.<\/p>\n Here we based our ambient exposure on what we wanted to do with the sky. \u00a0We wanted a slightly ominous looking sky by under-exposing it, and then using flash to pop the model brighter with correct exposure from our flash.<\/p>\n So the choice of how you expose for the background, really depends on what you want to do.<\/p>\n There is a limit though, you can not choose settings which will over-expose your subject. \u00a0(That should be an obvious limit.) \u00a0Broadly speaking, you have two scenarios here: <\/p>\n <\/p>\n in other words, we already have correct ambient exposure for our SUBJECT, regardless of our background – then we need to have our flash around 2 stops under. \u00a0Or 3 stops. \u00a0Somewhere there.<\/p>\n If we had decided to use manual flash<\/strong>, then we’d meter for our manual flash to give us exposure 2 or 3 stops (or somewhere there), under what we have set our cameras to for our background. \u00a0For example, if we had settled on f4 @ 100 ISO (as in the example at the top), then we’d set our flash so that our flash meter tells us we need an aperture of f2 (or f2-ish) for correct exposure. \u00a0In other words, at f4 (as in this example), our manual flash would then be under-exposed.<\/p>\n Now, if we use TTL flash<\/strong>, then our flash exposure compensation would be in the\u00a0region of -2 or -3 EV. \u00a0We have to keep a few things in mind with TTL flash though. \u00a0The tonality \/ reflectivity of our subject \/ scene will affect exposure. Also keep in mind that most cameras tend to under-expose TTL flash when there is heavy back-lighting. \u00a0So what you’d think would need 0EV, might need +1.3 EV. \u00a0Or in this case, you might want flash exposure 2 stops under “normal”, but you might get even less flash than that because of strong back-lighting. \u00a0Then -1EV might give you the same as -2EV might have in a different situation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Another approach to using flash with ambient light, is to intentionally under-expose your subject<\/strong> by a stop or so. \u00a0Then we use flash to give us correct exposure<\/strong>. Just as important, we use flash to give us great light which is directional.<\/p>\n Here are two articles that describe the decision process: So if we had decided to under-expose for our subject, and use flash to bring up exposure on your subject in relation to the exposure of your background \u00a0… then your flash becomes a dominant source of light.<\/p>\n With manual flash<\/strong>, the simplest would be to use a flash meter to help you figure out correct flash exposure.<\/p>\n With TTL flash<\/strong>, you’d have your FEC in the region of 0EV. \u00a0Against a brighter background, you might be using +1.0 EV .. or perhaps higher. \u00a0Perhaps +1.3 EV. \u00a0We will have to check our camera’s preview to see.\u00a0\u00a0(ie, you are basing your exposure settings on how you want your background to appear.) \u00a0Where TTL flash might be fast and easy to work with, it might not be as predictable as manual flash. \u00a0We will have to check our camera’s preview to confirm correct exposure, and possibly adjust our FEC. \u00a0And of course, rely on the latitude of the RAW file to take up some of the slack.\u00a0.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Going back to the original image again:<\/p>\n We ended up only needing a touch of fill-flash on our model, Tia. \u00a0In how we positioned her, we had open light on her face, and only needed just the lightest kiss of flash to open up any shadows on her face.<\/p>\n The choice of\u00a0maximum flash sync speed<\/strong> here should be an obvious one. \u00a0Since I was using PocketWizard Plus II units, I couldn’t go over maximum flash sync speed. \u00a0And for various reasons,\u00a0max flash sync speed<\/a> is a sweet spot when working with flash in bright light. \u00a0In short,\u00a0max sync speed gives us the most efficiency from our flash,\u00a0by giving us our widest possible aperture, without going into high-speed sync mode. \u00a0 This will also explain why a scenario like we have here, is the exact\u00a0opposite<\/strong> of a situation where we would\u00a0drag our shutter<\/a>. \u00a0 Dragging the shutter just doesn’t come into play in this situation – we’re working in bright light.<\/p>\n In this instance we used manual flash in a softbox. \u00a0Exposure for our flash was well under ambient exposure, because it needed to just be fill-flash. \u00a0The off-camera speedlight was set to manual, and was in a softbox.<\/p>\n There we have this particular end result. \u00a0But we could’ve decided on another approach in how we exposed for our background, and what we’d need our flash to do then. \u00a0Our choices are wide open.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" tutorial: Balancing flash with available light \/ ambient exposure Many of the questions I get on the Tangents blog\u00a0relate to balancing flash with available light, and I want to pull it all\u00a0together into a single article. The questions often revolve around metering for the ambient light, and how to balance flash with the ambient light. Read more inside…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15,22,31,42],"tags":[870,871,54,55,56,67],"yst_prominent_words":[1265,3693,3370,3741,3688,1337,3721,3715,3683,1855,3733,3372,1417,3706,2942,2937,3700,1415,3736,3726],"class_list":{"0":"post-2833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-exposure-metering","8":"category-flash-photography","9":"category-lighting","10":"category-photo-shoot","11":"category-technique","12":"tag-exposure-metering","13":"tag-flash-photography","14":"tag-flash-photography-technique","15":"tag-flash-photography-techniques","16":"tag-flash-photography-tips","17":"tag-off-camera-lighting-for-portraits","18":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2833"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49048,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2833\/revisions\/49048"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2833"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– the scenario you have, and
\n<\/span>– what you want to achieve.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/models\/tia\/NV2_8934_3up.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA\u00a0great starting point<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nmy starting point most often is a combination of:<\/p>\n\n
Exposure metering<\/strong><\/h2>\n
How do we expose for the background?<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/models\/tia\/img_3599.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n– You need to expose correctly for your subject (and then use fill-flash), or
\n– under-expose the ambient light for your subject to a certain extent, and then use flash to give correct exposure for your subject.<\/p>\nWhat we need to do with our flash exposure<\/strong><\/h2>\n
1. \u00a0If we\u00a0just need fill-flash,<\/h3>\n
2. \u00a0If we need flash as a main source of light:<\/h3>\n
\n\u2022 \u00a0Camera & flash settings: what do you want to achieve?<\/a>
\n\u2022 \u00a0Various scenarios: balancing flash with ambient light<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\nCamera settings and photo gear (or equivalents) used in this photo session<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
\nor alternately, the\u00a0Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite<\/a>\u00a0controlled by\u00a0Canon ST-E3 Transmitter<\/a><\/li>\n<\/div>\nSummary<\/h2>\n
Related articles<\/h2>\n
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