outdoor portraits
Sharp wide open with great flare control, shallow depth of field (DOF) and deliciously smooth bokeh - the Olympus mZD 75mm f/1.8 is almost perfect lens, here are a couple of mine:
general points
in general, the full sun between 10am-3pm or so, casts unflattering, harsh shadows on the face, thus most fashion photographers avoid shooting during these times in full sun, so what can we do to make the most of shooting outdoors?
take great care in choosing complimentary backgrounds and ambient light
try to avoid bright backgrounds unless it compliments the image:
the viewer's eye tends to be drawn towards the brightest parts of the image - in general, you will want this to be your subject - not the background
ensure colours of the background compliment the subject
consider using a long focal length lens as this will:
compress the background and this enable you to choose a less distracting background
blur the background more and thus make it less distracting - especially if you can use a wide aperture
keeps you a comfortable distance from the subject
cloudy days
although cloudy days provide a large light source for soft lighting, the direction is generally overhead which creates undesirable dark eye sockets, this can be minimised by:
selecting a location where the overhead sky is obstructed, and preferably only a relatively small section of the sky is visible at ~45deg altitude and thus can act as a soft box
use a silver reflector to fill in the eyes
use a fill-in flash as near to the camera lens as possible to fill in the eyes, give catchlights but this risks adding an annoying sharp shadow (reduced by having flash close to lens, or better a ring flash, or bouncing it off a large surface behind the camera)
pose the subject with face towards the sky
a further issue with cloudy days is the colour temperature of the light which you may need to warm up in post-processing
sunrise or sunset shots
shooting in the harsh sun
sun as key light - pose face appropriately
dramatic high contrast shots
expose for the highlights allow the shadows to be very dark giving dramatic look
great with narrow shafts of sunlight
or look for interesting shadows on background or on the face or body (eg. from lace hats, etc)
shoot into the sun for lens flare
shoot in the shade:
the broad lighting of the sky is very soft and when positioned well makes for a flattering photo, but tends to be quite cool and thus often needs color correction.
without additional lighting though, the sunlit background will be quite over-exposed and likely to be washed out.
ideally, you need to ensure it has some direction to avoid being too flat:
consider placing subject near an object (eg. a tree or under a roof of a shelter) which will block some of the light, but still give a nice “wall of light” from one direction as your key light
consider adding some directional light by using a reflector
sometimes sunlight or sky light bounced from a building can be a great key light, sunlight behind the subject being reflected from red brick buildings can be great, as can open sky light bounced off a white wall
if there is light falling through leaves that creates splotchy shadows, consider using a gobo to block it - this is particularly important for blond hair or light clothing which will end up having blown out highlights otherwise.
consider finding a location that gives a 3:1 contrast ratio:
use two gray cards at 3:1 difference in tone, hold them at right angles with the darker one towards the light source
when both cards appear to be the same tone, you will have 3:1 contrast ratio
you may wish to add a silver reflector in front of the subject and below to add more punch to their eyes
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wait for the sun to be obstructed
shoot with subject lit by the sun, preferably backlit or only partly lit:
place a diffuser between sun and subject:
this creates an effect similar to that of sunlight on a day with high cloud, but the sunlit background will be over-exposed by 0.5-1 stops
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of course, if the diffuser is quite dense then it becomes like shooting in the shade
shooting a portrait in a car
shield reflections on windscreen by using a black umbrella or coat to block the sky being reflected
consider focusing with narrow DOF on the rain drops on the windscreen and allowing an out of focus portrait
consider using a flash in the car
consider bouncing light from a reflector into the car
more Lightroom techniques for outdoor portraits
Key shifting:
here we reverse the usual flash-ambient ratios (ie. key shift), so that the flash becomes main light and ambient is under-exposed and acts as a bit of a fill.
now this can be difficult in bright conditions due to the limitations of flash output and flash sync speed.
let's take an easy example, on a overcast day:
ambient light reading (incident from clouds) gives ISO 100, f/4 at 1/180th sec (the fastest flash sync speed for most cameras)
now, to under-expose ambient we are forced to either:
use an aperture smaller than f/4, eg. f/5.6 or f/8, but this may result in too much DOF for our liking, although it should be fine for edgy, everything almost sharp editorial style portraits.
use f/4 with a polariser filter which will reduce flash and ambient light by about 1.3 f stops
let's say we use a ND4 filter instead, as it reduces light by 2 f stops, this now means the correct aperture for ambient light exposure is now f/2, but if we want to under-expose ambient, we must use f/2.8-f/4 depending on how much under-exposure, but at least now we have more limited DOF for a more sensual, intimate portraits.
for an edgier effect:
now, for a sunny day we run into problems:
sunny 16 rule for ambient sunlit scenes gives exposure ISO 100, f/16, 1/100th sec approximates to f/11, 1/180th
now we really do need to resort to using a 2 stop ND or polariser, which will give ambient exposure of f/5.6, 1/180th sec
now we need to underexpose sunlight, so need to set actual aperture to f/8-f/11 depending on desired amount of under-exposure
now to calculate flash output needed, if we set aperture to f/8, this is really f/16 taking into account the filter, and if using direct flash 2m from subject, this means flash output GN must be at least 2×16 = 32(m) at ISO100, easily within the realm of most external flash units, but in-camera flashes won't have enough power (they usually have GN 11-13 in metres).
the difficult starts to arise when using flash to bounce or through softbox or at a distance, then you really need more powerful flashes.
the other difficulty is if you really want to use a wide aperture, the solutions to this are either:
use a medium format film camera with flash sync at 1/500th sec, this will allow aperture of f/6.3, 1/500th for ambient light exposure, but with polariser, this becomes f/4.5 and thus to under-expose ambient we can set an aperture of f/6.3-f/8.
use a camera-flash system that allows use of high-speed flash sync mode (although the higher the shutter speed, the less maximum flash output is available - so move it closer or get the highest output flash).
an example
Canon 580EX II flash set to Manual at 1/2 + 0.7 output with full CTO gel and placed in an Orbis Ring Flash unit set at ~4-5 foot from subject
Metz macro flash as a fill flash with 1/2 CTO gels set to PC Sync, Manual at 1/16th mounted on camera lens to give ~ 1 stop under-exposure compared to Orbis flash
Camera with 90mm equivalent lens at 4-5' from subject with polariser filter
Custom WB for the Orbis flash (the Metz will be more blue but that is how outdoor sunny day shadows are naturally)
f/1.8-2.4 at ISO 200 will give an approximate exposure for this set up - if too dark, move in closer.
with a subject backlit by full sunlight, you may need to push shutter speed to 1/500th to avoid blown highlights - but remember part of your image will not get lit by the flash!
on cloudy days: