what am I doing wrong?

[Daniel W.]

Agreed, move the sun behind them or find open shade. That would solve much of the blow-out problem. Then fire the flash off camera, or have a person holding the strobe.

[carrbowl]

Thomas...why do you say never AV for this??? Just curious....(not saying you are right or wrong!!) trying to understand!!

[Tom]

Originally Posted by carrbowl

Thomas...why do you say never AV for this??? Just curious....(not saying you are right or wrong!!) trying to understand!!

So you can better control the light. When you are taking a shot like this, your camera doesn't have a small enough spot meter to get the faces perfect. You could get lucky with it, but chances are you are going to under expose or over expose. Learn to shoot manually and you will be able to get that correct exposure and the fill flash much quicker with much more consistent results.

If you are shooting Av, you are basically letting the camera pick the exposure and when you have the girls back to the sun (harsh shadows) you are going to get exposures all over the board. You want to get really consistent results, so the manual will help you better than the auto.

Now, I do suggest using Av or Tv for some things, this just isn't it. When you have a subject that is quickly moving from harsh shadows to sun (like a football player in Cowboys stadium) it is really hard to switch shutter speeds quick enough when you have a 3-4 stop difference in light. But the camera can do it for you.

Did I explain that well enough to make sense?

[carrbowl]

yes you did.. I was just taught to use the AV mode and use ETTL with a flash. I always shot manual myself. I wish I could explain why, but I just know it works. I was getting too many changes when shooting manual, and when shooting AV, it avoided too many changes. Like I said, I'm at that point, where I know what I'm doing, but have a hard time explaining it...not a good place to be!!

thanks for your explanation.

[janikphoto]

Originally Posted by terrtwins

How can I avoid the blown-out hair and parts of faces? This is a rough shot so please dont mind the background.

Glad you said something about the background, because I never found picnic tables to be all that appealing!

[Snickedyznaps]

The closer you get to the 10 to noon period to 3pm the harsher the light. Especially here in texas. Avoid shooting people at this time without a way to soften the light. You could have rotated them 60 degrees right. and use the pic-table to pose and then use flash fill(simplest answer). If you want to shoot this direction at this time of day...you will get harsh lighting and run the risk of either over exposing highlight or underexposing shadows. Oh! the perfect cheap answer is to do it on an overcast day. It is actually an heroic attempt over come the exposure gods of photography. I would not fight the fact that all vehicles including digital has a exposure range and the harsh sunlight in late morning and mid afternoon. Put the sun to the back and flash fill would be my choice.

[terrtwins]

Some good tips here.

The tables are there because I put 21 girls in the shot I was going for with the field in the background.