studio light & maintaining natural light

[megan_stone]

<p>im doing a portrait shoot for a toddler tomorrow and already scouted the location in the home and decided on set-up etc. floor to ceiling window, drapes fully closed... beautiful strips of light coming through and creating stripes of light and shadow on the floor. i ran a test with my studio light set-up etc... and although it maintained some of the atmosphere, its not as atmospheric. the flash naturally seems to get rid of the shadows etc. or at least its not as dramatic.</p>

<p>the reading of the natural light coming thru the window is ISO 200, F5.6, 125s. <br>

i tested the light to give me a 5.6 reading... did a test shot at that and at f8.</p>

<p>wondering what i need to do to maintain the dramatic lights, shadows etc but also get enough fill flash<br>

for my subject. please help.</p>

<p>much thanks</p>

[mdh-photography]

<p>if you can get rid of the flash, that will be one thing... but if not, keep the flash and aperture setting the same and slow your shutter speed down. That will capture more ambient. If that doesn't work, stop the aperture down a little, with the slower shutter speed, and keep the flash at the same power.</p>

<p>hth</p>

[megan_stone]

<p>thank you for your reply :) cant get rid of flash, as although some of the window light is hitting my subject's face, the other half is quite dark, need a bit of fill.</p>

<p>so basically, i should either stop down the F-stop or slow down shutter speed<br>

by doing that, do i maintain the deep shadows etc that i have of the blinds without flash....?<br>

but maintain enough fill in for my subject's face?</p>

[howard_m]

<p>have you considered just using a reflector instead of flash (or maybe flash via shoot-through) to fill-in the face?</p>

[elaine marie]

<p>Get rid of the flash, open the drapes and let the sun shine in!<br>

Natural light will amaze you once you work with it.<br>

Check out my maternity and baby proofing site on my web page.<br>

All done with only natural light. Once you do it you won't go back to flash.<br>

Email me if you have any questions.</p>