How to handle very difficult lighting conditions?

[Ultra Magnus]

Yesterday my family and I attended a friends of our's childs 2nd birthday party. It was a very nice day, in the shade at least, but also VERY bright. Now you might start seend where this is going... We shot about 150 pictures yesterday, and had a REAL hard time metering the light. If I set the exposure for the light in the shade, I'd get relativly slow shutter speeds, and any backround that was in the direct light of the sun was totally blown out, bright white, and the opposite would happend when shooting in the sun. Fill flash helped some, but I'm not happy with skin tones when using the flash outdoors. Any suggestions? The obvious would be to not shoot under hte mid-day sun, but it wasn't our party and were subject to the conditions.

Thanks.

PS. I think I should mention that we ended up getting a few real good shots, and many that are in the "nice snapshot" catagory so it wasn't a photographic failure, but I wish the results could've been better.

[another view]

Were you shooting film or digital? Sounds like it might be digital because you were able to see the results right away, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Digital doesn't have much exposure latitude. This means that the areas in open sunlight - because they're a couple or few stops brighter - will be really overexposed, or completely blown out. Using fill flash helps add light in the shade, which makes the light levels of sun vs. shade a little closer (lowering contrast) and preventing this problem, at least to some degree. Also, the color temperature (for white balance) is much different in the sun vs. the shade. Fill flash will be about the color of sunlight - yet another advantage.

What problems were you running into with fill flash? I usually set the flash (not the camera) one stop below the recommended exposure in a case like this, otherwise it looks like too much flash and not very natural. If the problem was with skin color and flash, check your white balance setting - it should be set to sunlight or slightly warmer, or a flash setting if you have it. And a lot of cameras can do this pretty well with auto white balance. Thing is, the subject illuminated by the flash is the most important area of the picture so that's the white balance to use.

[Trevor Ash]

It sounds like you already understand all the variables going on with fore/backgeound and the various techniques to get the exposure of them where you want.

I don't think there's a magic bullet that'll solve your problem.

From your response, it sounded like the only complaint you had with using flash was the displeasing skin tones it gives you. Another view touched on it already with his repsonse but I suggest you look into fixing the skin tone problem instead of looking for another problem to fix.

As another view suggested, if shooting digital you have a lot of options for color balance in camera. Personally, when shooting flash I use daylight balance settings and have been pleased with that.

Another option; Have you considered using gels over the flash so that you can better match the sunlit colors with the kind of skin tones you want? I'd think a couple light yellow/orange/reddish filters would help when shooting the subject in the shade.

I hope that made sense for you. I'm simply suggesting that you should resolve the issue you have with flash and skin tones.

[Ultra Magnus]

Yes, I am shooting digital. From the sound of both your responses, I assume you guys are referring to using a good external flash. I, sadly, still have to rely on my built in flash. My biggest problem is the inconsistent lighting it provides do to the subjects varying distances from the camera. Most of my dislike for the fill flash is the direction the light comes from; straight on. The natural light is much softer and usually comes from an agle creating pleasing soft shadows ans warm skin tones. My camera doesn't let me change the WB when the flash is on. My only options are auto, flash, or manual set. I havn't had any luck with the manual WB set using the flash indoors (no difffernt visually than custom or flash settings). I only have three flash settings for the built in flash.

Thanks for the replies. I'll post a couple of examples when I get a chance.

[another view]

Most of my dislike for the fill flash is the direction the light comes from; straight on.

Yeah, this is true. However, it does look a lot better if it's set one stop below the "automatic" setting because this way the light isn't so harsh. Trevor has a good idea about putting a gel over the flash, try a light amber (maybe the color of an 81B lens filter) and it will warm the light quite a bit. I know a pro who always does this - but he's a slide film shooter and auto white balance on a digital camera might lessen the effect of the warming gel. I say this because auto white balance will try to turned your warmed whites to a pure white and has no idea that the warm tone is intentional.

Depending on your camera, you may have some options. Set the white balance to daylight if you want to try the gel. That won't vary so you'll see the effect. If your camera has flash compensation for it's built-in flash, try setting it down one stop for fill flash. If you can mount an external flash, it should have a lot more power which will help in outdoor fill flash situations.

Trevor, stop being nice to me. ;)

[Ultra Magnus]

Here's an example of the blown out background, and another of flat pasty skin tones with fill flash. Neither of these have been PSed but I did manage to improve the skin tones a lot by adjuting the curves and applying a warming filter in PS (thanks for the suggestion!). Did I go too far wiht the PS on the adjusted photo?

Thanks.

[Trevor Ash]

Ahhhhh! These tell a slightly different story than what I was picturing. I think Another view got it right (hehehe).

For the first photo with the blown out background, no single flash would have helped. The reasons are because it's too much space to light up and you'd never light it evenly with one flash. For example, you could have used flash to expose the kids at a level equal to the slide in the background but then the tree in the foreground would be solid white and the grass area a few feet past the kids would be very very dark. These are just things you have to learn about and pay attention to when taking photos. For what it's worth, your camera did a good job getting the exposure good within it's capabilites.

The advice I gave you earlier really doesn't apply now that I see these photos.

For the skin tones of the baby, I totally see what you're talking about. Your edit looks better but is overdone in my opinion. Now, the reason for the bad skin tones is due to how the camera decided what white balance to use. It chose a white balance that was unflattering for the skin tones.

The way to fix this would have been to realize that you were shooting a baby in a shady area, recognize that shady areas are cool toned (bluish), and therefore set the color balance of the camera manually to "shade" or to a lower temperature color using the Kelvin feature.

Another option would have been to do a custom white balance for the shot.

A final option (the option I use) is to always shoot in RAW and always set white balance to 5600K. Doing it this way I never have to worry about white balance when taking most shots (only when I have the time do I worry about it). I correct white balance during post exposure when converting the RAW image.

[Ultra Magnus]

Thanks for the advice. It's another reason I can justify to the wife why we need a 20D. Our camera (sony f828) has limited WB control while using the build in flash. I've yet to tackle raw shooting, mostly because of the huge file sizes and limited CF card space, and also the wicked long write times on our camera. It doesn't buffer .tiff and raw formats so you are in lockdown until it's finished.

I saw my edited pic at work and on that monitor, I agree, it does look overdone. Here at work it looks better. Another reason to get my monitor calibrated. Thanks for taking the time to help me out!

[another view]

I first looked at your shots at work (yeah, busted) and now at home on my calibrated monitor. Earlier, the photoshopped one didn't look too bad - maybe a little much but close. Now it looks a lot more over done. The "original" version is a lot closer, a little blue but much closer than the other one. That's the difference with a calibrated monitor. I heard a lot of reasons to do it, but until I tried it, it wasn't a big priority.

I guess my suggestion would be to get an accessory flash (think the F828 has a hot shoe, doesn't it?). If you're thinking of going the Canon route eventually you might look at one of theirs for future compatibility. Use it now in Auto mode where the flash's light sensor determines it's output. Not perfect but not bad either. This way you could shoot at f5.6 and set the flash at f4 - for example - to have the flash one stop underexposed which works great for fill. Set the WB to daylight and you're all set. I'd also look at monitor calibration - to do just the monitor (all I've got) makes the biggest difference and it's not horribly expensive.

[Ultra Magnus]

See, all that stuff you just spewed out about flashes having their own light sensors and stuff is all foreign to me. I really need one, and you are just making me want one even more. I feel that I have a pretty good grasp on the exposure controls in the camera, but it seems I've got a whole new ball game to learn regarding good external flashes. Sony makes a flash for my camera, its $199 everywhere. Is the hot shoe a regular standard thing? I assumed it was a sony setup that required a sony flash... Also, could I use a remote cable setup on my camera for doing indoor portraits? (my wife does these mostly with the kids but the light usually sucks)

Thanks for all your help!

[another view]

Not sure about the remote for your camera, but flashes fit into a standard hot shoe. You can use almost anything but beware that some older units might fry the electronics in the camera. The voltage that the camera can handle that triggers the flash has to be higher than the voltage that the flash puts out so double check that, but it's usually a newer camera/older flash problem.

Flashes with built-in light sensors are really nothing new, and it's not the ideal setup either. TTL flash uses a sensor in the camera to determine the flash output, but digital cameras are still not as good as this as film cameras. You could buy the Sony flash which will give you the most options with that camera - but it won't do you much good if you're getting a Canon. On the other hand, flash systems change. Nikon's DX system was out for only a couple of years before they introduced iTTL - trying to keep up is tough and expensive. If you don't plan on getting another camera anytime soon, the Sony would be the best bet.

[Ultra Magnus]

Thanks for all your help! I will start researching flash units now...