I really look forward to David Bostedo's posts, particularly in ESS, but his recent photo of the Hornbill in Avian has got me wondering about lighting and how to manage what you are dealt. The Hornbill was perched facing what appears to be nearly into the sun. David seems to be shooting nearly perpendicular to the strong light source. Metering the bird in this situation and taking the picture with an auto exposure program usually leaves me with some dark shadows and bright or blown highlights. Without a flash my thought would be to set EC -1 or so, not blow out the highlights (maybe even more than -1), and suck it up hoping to bring shadow detail out in PP.
Drew Fulton offered that a flash might balance the shadow and tone down the sidelighting, and this is where I am stuck. Here is where ETTL systems and auto exposure programs lose me. If you throw on a 580EX and a better beamer and make no other adjustments, what would be the outcome? Big white bird? In using fill to compensate for a brightly side-lit subject do you also need to reduce exposure either manually or via EC?
On a related subject, what would be the proper way to meter a scene like this, spot, center weighted, or some matrix program? I can see an argument for both spot and center weighted. Spot sounds good because it's metering the subject, but the subject has a lot of variation in light. Could that be a problem? Center weighted sounds tempting because it might average out the shadows and highlights, and come up with an acceptable exposure.
Kelly, this is a mighty complex subject, but I'll try and offer some suggestions. First and foremost, regardless of the light or direction of light, you need to expose for the important highlights. How you meter for that is whatever you are comfortable with - be it evaluative, partial, spot, manual, whatever. My preference is for evaluative (matrix) because that's what I'm comfortable with. Many others use hand held meters and manual exposure settings. Consistency and knowledge of the technique is most important here. Assuming you are shooting digital, your in-camera histogram can be used to verify exposure for whichever exposure method you choose. Try and push the exposure to the edge, without pushing the highlights over that edge. Most cameras have "blinking highlights" in the LCD to indicate over exposure.
Now then, with the ambient exposure properly set, you deal with flash independently. Fill flash is always done with some amount of negative flash exposure compensation (FEC). And depending on the desired effect, the amount of FEC is varied. To fill in shadows on a sunlit bird, a good place to start is with -1.7 FEC. Different flashes and systems will each produce differing results, so you'll need to 'season to taste'. The most important aspect for fill flash is to bring out more detail in areas that would be dark without it, but keep in subtle enough so not obvious.
There's no magic formula I can give you that will work in every situation. Knowing when to use fill flash and how much FEC to use takes practice and experience. Give it a try, and with cooperative subjects be sure to try different settings so you can evaluate the results.
It is important to consider the subject size with fill flash. I find when the subject is small in the frame to use spot metering for the most consistent results with the flash. With a large subject in the frame it doesn't make much difference. Flash is one area where Canon seems to be lagging behind Nikon. With Nikon matrix works pretty well even with small subjects but with Canon it is better to use spot metering and be sure the spot is on the subject.
Discussion
3 repliesDrew Fulton offered that a flash might balance the shadow and tone down the sidelighting, and this is where I am stuck. Here is where ETTL systems and auto exposure programs lose me. If you throw on a 580EX and a better beamer and make no other adjustments, what would be the outcome? Big white bird? In using fill to compensate for a brightly side-lit subject do you also need to reduce exposure either manually or via EC?
On a related subject, what would be the proper way to meter a scene like this, spot, center weighted, or some matrix program? I can see an argument for both spot and center weighted. Spot sounds good because it's metering the subject, but the subject has a lot of variation in light. Could that be a problem? Center weighted sounds tempting because it might average out the shadows and highlights, and come up with an acceptable exposure.
How do you get your brain around all this?
Now then, with the ambient exposure properly set, you deal with flash independently. Fill flash is always done with some amount of negative flash exposure compensation (FEC). And depending on the desired effect, the amount of FEC is varied. To fill in shadows on a sunlit bird, a good place to start is with -1.7 FEC. Different flashes and systems will each produce differing results, so you'll need to 'season to taste'. The most important aspect for fill flash is to bring out more detail in areas that would be dark without it, but keep in subtle enough so not obvious.
There's no magic formula I can give you that will work in every situation. Knowing when to use fill flash and how much FEC to use takes practice and experience. Give it a try, and with cooperative subjects be sure to try different settings so you can evaluate the results.
First, expose for the important highlights and push the exposure until just before losing detain in those highlights.
Use whatever metering system I am comfortable with but use it consistently.
Use fill flash to bring out shadow detail and balance the highlights, starting with a significant negative FEC.
Practice!
Thanks again!
Kelly