lindabekebrede Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 hi! i've tried to shoot kids on the beach with my nikon d70s en 70-200m 2.8f lens on a tripod. but either the picture was totally overexposed or underexposed. can anyone help me out with this problem? i tried to bracket my shots. used my sb800 flash (but at far distance it doesnt work) how can i get my settings right? spotmetering on the kids seemed to be helpfull. thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rainer_t Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 This is something you cannot cure by just chosing the right settings. The basic problem is the very different brightness of sky/beach/water and the faces (especially when in the shade). If you expose for sky/beach, very likely the faces are heavily underexposed, if you spotmeter on the faces, the rest is overexposed. The only way out is to bring more light into the faces (fill flash for example), but as you wrote this is not going to work for larger distances. So, keep distance short enough. To an extend, it helps if you shot raw (rather than jpg) and reduce the very high contrast between sky and faces in postprocessing, but I doubt that the results will be completely satisfying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lindabekebrede Posted July 30, 2008 Author Share Posted July 30, 2008 thanks! so that means that it is almost impossible to shoot from greater distance in a beach/sky setting? i thought about HDR processing but with kids also not a option.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anisshah Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 I had a similar problem using film (Superia 200) for pictures of my son in the swimming pool last weekend and was wondering whether it would have helped to meter separately for main subject and background and then average the readings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brooks short Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 " so that means that it is almost impossible to shoot from greater distance in a beach/sky setting? i thought about HDR processing but with kids also not a option.." You could take your SB800 off camera...place it on a light stand bounced into an umbrella close to the subjects.... set it to manual exposure.... back off to use your long lens and trigger it with a radio slave such as a pocketwizard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nathan_stiles Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 The right tools would be to use some lighting modifiers to add light to the subjects-- however, you can get by w/ bracketing the shots. Shoot from a tripod and shoot the scene w/o the kids, expose for the background. Then shoot the kids and expose for them-- I personally would like to still add light to them, b/c the shadows you are getting will suck. So, as Brooks mentioned, you should try to weight (everyone assumes we'd know this-- the beach will use your umbrella as a sail, so weight it down) a lightstand and have your flash off camera firing into an umbrella or through a diffuser. Then, use the extract filter, or layer mask to put the kids on the properly exposed background. This will limit any dynamic moving of the camera, but we are trying to do something w/o the "right" tools. This is why S.I. Swimsuit shoots have assitants holding sun swatters and reflectors. Oh, you are shooting in the first or last two hours of the day, correct? That makes a difference too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
picturesque Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 I agree it is almost impossible to shoot in bright conditions from longer distances (with a telephoto). The basic problem is the flash does not have enough "reach". Your most powerful shoemouts are not going to cut it beyond about 10-12 feet from your subjects, against bright sun, which is pretty constant. For bright sun, you can just set your camera on ISO 100, f11, 1/250th and then shoot with fill flash within that above distance mentioned, and usually get well balanced shots, given you have to be on top of the flash metering by using flash compensation. The flash metering will be fooled by backlighting. Use of modifiers in any session beyond a controlled, posed situation, on the beach is not very practical, not to mention dangerous, even. Usually the wind will make mincemeat of your modifier in no time, not to mention the serious decrease in guide number. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nathan_stiles Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 http://www.sunbounce-usa.com/pros.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aimpic Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 Hi Linda, Some situations just do not work. What would a pro do? To start with control the light. If you can't have 3 assistants to hold diffusers etc, put the children under a white beach umbrella or some sort of shade to give soft diffused light. Make sure you have no hot bright points that will be visible in your firing line. Get a lens of about 70 - 100mm on 35mm equivalent and use a fairly wide aperture, say 2.8 or 4.0. Set them up "approximately" as you want them. Keep them there by giving them something to do like a toy, drink etc, but first take an incident light reading and be ready. Then talk to them, involve them, coax expressions and withing 5 minutes you will have winners if you performed each of the steps well including your design, light reading and psychology. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lindabekebrede Posted July 31, 2008 Author Share Posted July 31, 2008 thanks a lot everyone! really helpfull all your comments! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now