Ramblings about shutter speed, F-stops, sunlight and flash

A while ago back I did the second session for the FillesFolles girls. While we had cool locations indoor something else caught my attention outside. The garage was made of these glass square tiles and would make for a great backdrop.

The sun was out hard that day so to avoid racoon eyes I need some fill flash.

On the first portrait one 580EXII was used on 1/2 power shot trough an umbrella camera left from close distance to the subject (for softer light) Now when using external flash I can’t go faster than 1/250th of a second so I had to close my aperture down not to get the image overexposed because of the harsh sunlight.

Outdoor

While technically there is nothing wrong with this first image I wanted a different look … a shallower depth of field. We opened up the garagedoor and positioned the model inside. With the same lighting scheme, the flash now acted as the main light (power to 1/4) and the light falling inside on the right acted as a fill. The hard sunlight hitting the glass tiles provided the backlight.

I now had control over the amount of available light and was able to open up my aperture to F2.8 to get the effect I wanted. I could also play around with the lighting ratios left & right. There even is a nice triangle of light on her left cheek (camera right)

Indoor

I love it when a plan comes together 😉

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