Out of the shade into the sunlight?

[movingex]

I'm shooting some soccer team pictures and I'm probably going to be shooing under some trees for open shade. The problem is that the sun will be glaring on the grass in the background. In the past when I've done this the grass will be way overexposed from the direct sunlight creating a nearly blown out background.

I can't place them with the sun behind them because of the very distracting background (people walking back and forth as well as cars driving by).

Just wondering if anyone has had to deal with this with any success.

Thanks

[T. Adam Martin]

You have a number of options, each with their own benefits/costs:

[1] Expose for the background and use artificial light:

Benefit: You expose properly for the entire scene
Costs: Very time intensive; High costs for equipment

[2] Dual process your images

Benefit: Very low costs since you are doing everything in post
Cost: Depending on how you expose, you will be either introducing noise (raising exposure on subjects) and/or losing detail by blowing highlights (in background)

[3] Bracket the exposure:

Benefits: you maintain the integrity of the image by properly exposing for the background and then properly exposing for the subject
Costs: Your subjects move, so you will have to spend more time in post with layer masks

These options are not exhaustive, but they probably fit the situation closest (where waiting for the sun to go down more so you can shoot at a different time is prohibitive).

[PEC]

you could try the David Hobby method (along the lines Tyler mentions in #1) by getting a nikon d70 on the used market and shooting manual flashes and overpowering the sun. You can get the d70 to sync at virtually any shutter speed, allowing you to let the background go as dark as you like while lighting your subjects with the flash.

I have wanted to try that myself, buy i gave my d70 to my son in law a few years ago :(

[Daniel W.]

I'll the tree line for a background and placing subjects under a white pop-up gazebo, with strobes. It gave me an area I was in more in control of and shade to work with strobes, which exposed for the daylight (not sure of you're gear setup though).

[todd_a]

Like mentioned above, I'd go with a strobe or several and balance the ambient. Once you get things dialed in, you can just go to shooting.

[JWCustomPhotography]

For me the quickest easiest least time intensive is to strobe the folks expose everything correctly in camera and have little to do in post.


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[JWCustomPhotography]

Originally Posted by todd_a

Like mentioned above, I'd go with a strobe or several and balance the ambient. Once you get things dialed in, you can just go to shooting.

Yeah only takes a minute to dial it in, an then boom boom boom


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[MT Stringer]

@OP, "Team soccer" pics would be hard to do under a pop up tent. At least I think it would.

Also, to balance the sunlight, set your camera at it's sync speed in shutter priority and take a pic. If it is sunlight you might need an aperture of f/16 or f/18 or thereabouts. That could be a good thing if you need the extra depth of field for more than one row of players.

Switch the camera to manual and use the 1/250 and aperture. Take a shot and adjust the shutter speed down if you need more light. Or lower the ISO. Once you get the background exposed OK, you can turn on your strobe and adjust it's power manually until your subjects look exposed properly. At least that is the way it seems to me it would work.

Good luck.

[texxter]

This is a tough situation. You need to photograph an entire team in the shade, with a full sunlight background. First, you need to expose the background correctly. Let's say it's ISO100, 1/125, f16. Ideally the background should be a little underexposed. so let's say you want ISO100 1/125 f22.

Now you add flash. The shutter speed could be bumped up to 1/250 for most cameras, so this means you need to do 1/250 f16 with your flash. Quite a bit of power, especially if you need to light the entire group with a large umbrella.

Let's say that you use a Canon 580EX zoomed at 50mm. This gives you a GN of 50. To calculate the aperture at, say, 5 meters, without any diffusion, at full power, you'll need 50/5 = f10 - this is insufficient to get the exposure you want. So you add another flash and double the illumination to get you close to f/16. Now you have to account for the umbrella, which will eat up 1 fstop at least. You can't do it with two flashes and underexpose the background. Perhaps high speed sync will get you there, but power is greatly reduced, so I am not sure two flashes will do it - worth trying.

I have used a high power strobe, 1200 ws, and this will give me the ability to overpower the sun with a modifier without breaking a sweat. So that's a possibility if you can borrow one.

Here is an image I did in full sun, f/22 with a powerful studio strobe, underexposing the sun by 1 f-stop. In order to get shallower depth of field I would have needed a ND density, say three fstops, and dial the exposure down to f8.

[brad]

High speed sync is also an option to balance the ambient... for instance, say the scene metered at 80 ISO, 1/800th, and f/4.5 .. put your subject in the foreground in the shade and add flash for f/4.5 and ISO 80 (remember, the shutter doesn't matter as long as it syncs with the flash.. because your flash duration is about 1/1000th of a second on average.

This was shot just today under these circumstances... the bluebonnets behind are in full sun.. she and the bluebonnets around her are in the shade of a reflector... flash at 1/8th power and about 3 1/2 feet from her.

[movingex]

Thanks everyone. I've got AB 1600/800 and a Vagabond and played with exposing the background correctly and using the AB to light the subject and it should work just fine. I also did get a white 10x10 tent thing that I may use for the players just because the shade would be more consistent. I will still have to put the teams outside though. Just hope it's not too windy. I tried setting up the tent with the add on side panels last Sunday and the wind was not cooperating.

[movingex]

Originally Posted by brad

High speed sync is also an option to balance the ambient... for instance, say the scene metered at 80 ISO, 1/800th, and f/4.5 .. put your subject in the foreground in the shade and add flash for f/4.5 and ISO 80 (remember, the shutter doesn't matter as long as it syncs with the flash.. because your flash duration is about 1/1000th of a second on average.

This was shot just today under these circumstances... the bluebonnets behind are in full sun.. she and the bluebonnets around her are in the shade of a reflector... flash at 1/8th power and about 3 1/2 feet from her.

Nice pic, very well done.

[rhoffart]

I have been told that a ND filter will also help if high speed sync in not an option. No experience with this ...

Neutral Density Filter Information