Here's the premise, you've got a great spot it's close to the end of the day, and there is a lot of sun. The sun also happens to be on the other side of the spot that you're shooting, which casts some pretty nasty shadows and makes exposing the sky properly very hard. What we want to do is fill in the shadows of the spot, and expose the sky so that we have a nice shade of blue. So I've put together a few steps and some photos that show you how you can go about achieving a properly exposed photo with some good colour dynamics.
Camera Settings: iso 100, f11 1/250th
Camera Gear: Nikon D300, Nikon 10.5mm F2.8 Fisheye, 2x AlienBee B400s triggered by Pocketwizards, Sekonic L-358 with PW Module
Step 1. The spot: We can see it's just a barrier, with some yellow paint at the bottom, the wall itself is pretty light, but the entire thing is in the shade because of the sun placement.
(Note all thumbnails open larger in lightbox popup)
Step 2. The angle: I've decided to shoot this spot vertical fish from down low, because my buddy Tomas is going to do a 5-0 grind to fakie.
Step 3. Properly exposed wall: ISO 100, F4.5, 1/250th - In this photo you can clearly see that the sky is not a very desirable blue, but more washed out. The reason for this, is I've exposed the shaded area of the spot, the barrier, so the sky is a couple of stops over exposed.
Step 4. Getting a proper exposure with the sky: ISO 100, F11, 1/250th. You can see when we expose the sky to a darkness we'd like to have in the photo, the barrier as a result is almost too dark to see.
Step 5. Setting up some flashes. Since I have the very bright sun that is going to be behind the skater, I won't need to use my own rim light to make him pop. So for this photo, I'm going to use 2 flashes and everything should be smooth. I've set up the first flash (Flash 1) slightly behind me, and to my right of where I'm going to be, it's going to be my main fill on the skater and is mostly directed to his body. Flash 2 will be filling in the shadow from the sun, I don't want to over expose the concrete, or make it too bright, so I'm actually going to under-expose the concrete slightly (about F8.0 on the light meter).
Flash 1 - output power of F11 where the skater will be (pointing the light meter at flash 1)
Flash 2 - output power of F5.6 on the wall (by itself), combined with the bit of Flash 1 that hits the wall I get F8.0 on the light meter.(pointing the light meter at Flash 2)
Step 6. Dial the camera to ISO 100, F11, 1/250th, make sure that your pocketwizards are all turned on, fire a test shot, then get down to business.
The finished product:
photo: BrianGarson.com
| Next > |
|---|
