need a tip or two pleae

[BethG]

tomorrow I am going to shoot a friend's daughter and her fiance in the mountains. The spot they've picked out is on a trail head that overlooks a valley w/ mountains filled with aspens in the background. The spot is beautiful but they want to shoot at about 1:00 in the afternoon and the sun will be high and facing them. There is no other way to face them at this particular spot. Any suggestions regarding lighting/filters, etc would be helpful! the attached shot was taken about 7:00 a.m.

thanks much!

Beth G.

[peeker]

- To be able to soften the light on your subjects, you will need to find an assistant to carry large white, translucent material (found in a 5in1 reflector). This will work more for close-ups of them rather than full body shots.

- Use a reflector/fill flash to take away the shadows that will be under their eyes from the midday sun.

- If you have one, use a polarizing filter to be able to capture the blue within the sky and not to overexpose it.

- Shoot in RAW so you can work with the image in post processing easier.

Hope that helps.
Good luck!

[BethG]

Thanks! I have a polarizing filter with me as well as a small 5 in one - which of course also has the reflector with it. I always shoot in raw - learned that one the hard way last fall in New England. I was already thinking of the translucent filter but the reflector missed the thought process...I wish I wasn't such a newby!

Thanks for the tips-they're very helpful!!

[Daniel W.]

I would get as big as a blocking/diffusing device I could, unless you want to stick to just headshots. Even with a 43", I have trouble getting full body - and it's held by an assist. You may want to consider off camera fill-flash.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...anslucent.html

[texxter]

I am in favor of using flash instead of a diffusor, and the reason is the value of the background. If you use a diffusor you'll reduce the light hitting the subject (but not the light hitting the background) by at lest 1 f-stop - when you adjust your exposure to get a good exposure on the face, the background will be overexposed by 1 f-stop. There is a good chance you'll blow out the sky. With flash you're not taking light away from the subject, you're adding to it, which means the background will be underexposed with respect to the subject, i.e., a bit darker and not blown out.

Of course, you can do both to get nice results - diffuse sunlight to get rid of harsh shadows, then use flash, hopefully off camera, as key light. The trick is setting the exposure right, but TTL should be able to handle it.

[humminboid]

Beautiful area! This may be a bit late, but...Facing the sun is always difficult, as is high noon or therabouts, because people tend to squint, and the lighting causes harsh shadows.

An overcast day, or waiting for a cloud to cover the sun, or fill flash, or a biiig square of white rip stop nylon to act as a shade...but that takes a couple of assistants, or a stand...more stuff to carry, (no wonder Minor White said "Nothing more than 500 yards from the car is interesting!) because you can't possibly handle that and/or a reflector yourself and do the pixes justice.
Fill flash would be the best..set -1 or 2 stops below ambient. A bounce card lowers full power flashes ~1 1/2-2 stops.

When I was learning, the Sergeant always said "Burn them up!" We could and did correct the overexposure in the darkroom.

NOW, I can disagree; 1 or 2 stops lower does just fine, and looks more natural , imo.

Location. People say OOOOhhh, What a beautiful background, not realizing that to include a lot reduces the size of the subject.

Like those beautiful vacation shots of Yellowstone meadows with the little black dots. "What is that?", you will ask? "Bufalo" will be the answer.

Ahhhh,yes, NOW I see! Avoid...get closer!

Good luck!