How to balance skin color and pure white lace skirt exposure ?

<p>Last week, I took indoor portrait picture with two speedlights on umbrella, for my 5 years old niece on pure white lace skirt. <br>

Exposure on her face, arms and legs was perfect but the lace skirt was blown out and lost all details. Without editing, how can I get a perfectly balance exposure on her face and skirt ? <br>

Many thanks. </p>

<p>Meter for the white lace, and if that leaves you with an over-exposed face, you need to use a gobo to tone down the light that's hitting the face. It's harder to be more specific without seeing the composition/set, but if you're using two large light sources like that, and your camera can't record enough dynamic range for a no-editing-allowed shot to portray both the skin and a white prop's details, then you have to modify the light itself. A properly positioned gobo that knocks a stop or so off of the light (essentially, casting a partial shadow) on the face would do the job.</p>

Matt,

If the face is perfectly exposed but the pace is over exposed, then I thought you reduce the light of the skirt (if possible)

and keep same exposure settings or increase light on face (if co rolling light on skirt not possible) and decrease exposure

using smaller aperture (because using flash) or nd filter. Am I missing something?

 

I understand the exposure on face might still be controlled through ettl/similar technology. Is that the reason for your contrary advice?

<p>Right, sorry - either way! Point is, you can't for some reason shoot RAW and use that extra latitude to get both the face and the white parts comfortably in the exposure, then you have to modify the light - adding, or subtracting where needed.</p>

<p>Thanks. <br>

In quick shooting situation with one on-camera flash, something like a dark skin bride on pure white wedding dress walking out church with black tux groom, which part shall I meter ? </p>

<p>To answer your second question: AFAIK, every digital camera over the past few years which produces RAW files has at the least one stop of highlight protection (i.e. one stop over the correct exposure). They also have good shadow detail, too.</p>

<p>So - meter for the dress, then one stop over. In the RAW convertor, use the highlight recovery tool. Then make a small exposure adjustment. That's not a bad compromise if you don't know the exact dynamics of your sensor. Take some test shots if you can.<br /><br />Canon sensors are the worst performers all round, with 12 stops of DR. But even they allow some headroom in the highlights. If you were using the Sony A7s, for example, you could underexpose <strong>both</strong> the white material and the dark skin and get a very useable exposure. With digital cameras I always prefer underexposure, as opposed to overexposure.</p>

<p>I have had a similar problem, particularly when shooting under uncontrolled situations rather than the studio. I have used highlight protection to recover detail in areas that appeared to be blown out. Karim's suggestion of splitting the difference sounds like a good idea. You might be able to get even further through a combination of highlight protection to bring down the skirt and shadow protection to bring up the skin tones if they are too dark because of trying to accomodate the skirt.<br /><br />Difficult to fix this one through lighting. If she were in all white and it was just her face to be concerned about, you could set your lights and exposure to a level that gets the dress just right, then use a snoot on the light hitting her face and have it a stop or two brighter. But you've also got arms and legs to deal with, and that would be into multiple extra lights.<br /><br />In the good old days of film, this was not as much of a problem. You exposed for the face, and negative film (especially B&W) had enough range to handle the white dress. You just burned in that area when making the print.</p>