Landscape guy trying people

[RV]

Hey Benji,

The locals were not in the thread details, I have lived in many different places to include high in the Northern Hemisphere where those hours of operations don't always apply. When I lived in the UK we had cloud cover for 95% of the time which allowed naturally defused light which I loved!

[DonT]

Originally Posted by Benji

If possible DO NOT shoot between the hours of about 10AM to 5PM (summertime) if the sun is out. If you must shoot during those hours and the sun is out like you have above find some shade. If there is no shade put the sun behind her so it will be a hair and background light and use an off camera flash in a softbox or umbrella.

Benji

Originally Posted by Benji

I don't know of any D/C powered flash that can "overpower" the sun. The "internet pros" repeatedly brag about how they use high speed synch to "overpower the sun" in portraiture but when pressed for an image they present a horribly flat lit nearly black background image that looks like some 10 year old shot 30 years ago with a Kodak Brownie.

What you are attempting to do is very difficult and takes lots of knowledge and experience to pull it off well. I can do it but I've got 30 years behind the camera. The image below was shot with an off camera flash on a light stand with a homemade light modifier. I suggest heading for the shade and forget the sunshine pix until you get better.

Benji

Sorry I really don’t want to be a smart ass here, but let me make sure I have this right. Use an off camera flash but I shouldn’t use a bright fill-in flash because it makes the image flat, I shouldn’t use a scrim or diffuser unless I have many assistances, I shouldn’t shot from 10am-5:00pm unless I’m you.

Benji, with your 30 years of experience do you have some practical advice that I can apply in these situation other than just avoiding it?

[keithdewey3]

Shooting outside and with natural light isn't my strong suit so my advice would just be based on advice given to me and on the details of others here who are very good at using natural light and during the day.

I wouldn't buy anything right away. You may end up with a bunch of stuff you don't need or wish you had spent the money on something else.
Reflectors and diffusers can be hard to use outside if it is windy at all.
Your 580 will work great as fill flash which is probably the best way to go in sunlight rather than trying to use the flash as a main in those circumstances

Here are a few people and places you can take a look at that are among the best at doing what you are talking about..

Benji has a tutorial on it here that is helpful.
Fran does this a lot and has several threads on here where he has explained how he did it.
RainLilly(Sis) shoots outside a lot and has quite a few threads and images on here with good discussions and advice from others on how she shot.

I think the consensus is pretty much that trying to shoot in the open when the sun is high and bright is a very difficult thing to do. Hard enough that most of us avoid it like the plague.

As a side note: Orion. Everyone's location is right below our username under our avatar beside all of our posts. Some folks don't have one there but most do.

[DonT]

Originally Posted by keithdewey3

Shooting outside and with natural light isn't my strong suit so my advice would just be based on advice given to me and on the details of others here who are very good at using natural light and during the day.

I wouldn't buy anything right away. You may end up with a bunch of stuff you don't need or wish you had spent the money on something else.
Reflectors and diffusers can be hard to use outside if it is windy at all.
Your 580 will work great as fill flash which is probably the best way to go in sunlight rather than trying to use the flash as a main in those circumstances

Here are a few people and places you can take a look at that are among the best at doing what you are talking about..

Benji has a tutorial on it here that is helpful.
Fran does this a lot and has several threads on here where he has explained how he did it.
RainLilly(Sis) shoots outside a lot and has quite a few threads and images on here with good discussions and advice from others on how she shot.

I think the consensus is pretty much that trying to shoot in the open when the sun is high and bright is a very difficult thing to do. Hard enough that most of us avoid it like the plague.

As a side note: Orion. Everyone's location is right below our username under our avatar beside all of our posts. Some folks don't have one there but most do.

That's awesome information. I really didn’t want to be negative, but sometimes you just have to deal with less than ideal situations. A little knowledge can go a long way and it’s always appreciated.

Synchronizing a flash under 1/200 of second and still keeping the aperture at 5.6 is not always possible under these conditions. So a diffuser might have been a better choice. Without an assistant I know I would need a stand and clamps. And while wind would have been a challenge, it might have been the best choice. A scrim overhead would have been great to have as well to kill the hot spots and allow better use of a fill flash, but in general that’s a lot of gear to move around.

[Sailor Blue]

One easy lighting for those nasty mid-day hours is to place the subject just inside a shadowed area and have an assistant hold a large reflector in the sunlight to bounce some of that sunlight onto the subject. The bounced light can be the main or fill light depending on what your concept of the image.

A large reflector can be up to a 6'x4' one but remember the bigger it is the harder it will be for the assistant to hold it if there is any wind.

[Benji]

Originally Posted by DonT

Sorry I really don’t want to be a smart ass here, but let me make sure I have this right. Use an off camera flash but I shouldn’t use a bright fill-in flash because it makes the image flat, I shouldn’t use a scrim or diffuser unless I have many assistances, I shouldn’t shot from 10am-5:00pm unless I’m you.

Benji, with your 30 years of experience do you have some practical advice that I can apply in these situation other than just avoiding it?

Bright fill in flash IMHO translates to an flat on camera lit image like virtually every amateur does. Fill flash is exactly that, a "fill" light. The fill light is not nor should it ever be the main light. It "fills" in the shadows from the main light, hence the name fill light.

Just like any professional with years of experience I can do thigs that those with less experience can't do simply because I made all the dumb mistakes many many years ago and learned from them. Most of those things were things that the pros said couldn't be done but I tried them anyway and I quickly learned the hard way that they were right.

So, assuming you don't want to spend hard earned $$$ on equipment that you may or may not ever use again, but you want nice professional looking images, you need to work like a professional would. MOST professionals use shade not sunlight, nor do they shoot in the sunshine when it is high overhead. Granted Dean Collins shot regularily in bright sunshine, but he had about 12 assistants, several flash units, numerous gobos, lots of reflectors, a number of light absorbers and YEARS of experience doing it.

The first image below shows an image that needed fill flash, and when it was added it did what the fill flash is supposed to do fill in the shadows. The second image shows an overhead light blocker in use blocking the undesirable direct overhead light that causes raccoon eyes. It also shows a silver reflector bouncing some additional light into the scene. The note about the hole in the canopy is about the natural hair light that this location has due to a storm breaking a large branch off of a large tree behind and to camera left that left a large hole in the canopy above and well behind her. The last image was shot in the shade (under the roof of the portico of our local courthouse) with a single silver reflector at camera left just out of camera view mounted on a light stand.

Benji

[Benji]

Oops,

Here is the "money shot" that I captured right after the second image.

The reason for my comments about the hair light in the wide angle shot was the fact that when I first posted this image last fall here on Photocamel a couple of responders were curious about the hair light, where it came from, did I add it via a flash and so forth.

Benji

[DonT]

Originally Posted by Benji

Oops,

Here is the "money shot" that I captured right after the second image.

The reason for my comments about the hair light in the wide angle shot was the fact that when I first posted this image last fall here on Photocamel a couple of responders were curious about the hair light, where it came from, did I add it via a flash and so forth.

Benji

Ben that money shot looks it was done in a studio. Thank you and that gave me tons of ideas to play with.

[DonT]

Originally Posted by Benji

Oops,

Here is the "money shot" that I captured right after the second image.

The reason for my comments about the hair light in the wide angle shot was the fact that when I first posted this image last fall here on Photocamel a couple of responders were curious about the hair light, where it came from, did I add it via a flash and so forth.

Benji

Here's one in the shade

[RV]

Originally Posted by DonT

Here's one in the shade

Arm pits are a nono I believe.