back lighting

[haunteddoc]

OK I need some help. I am in Rockford IL with my son at a snare drum camp. They are doing a lot of practice under trees and in the shade. This is creating a lot of intense backlighting. When I use exposure compensation the background really gets blow out and the kids are still a little dark. Any ideas? Do I just expose for the kids and then just live with the blown out background.

 

[Tim]

unless you are able to use a fill flash, you are going to be stuck with those conditions. meter for the kids, they are more important than the background anyway. you want kids with a background, not a background with some kids in it.

 

[haunteddoc]

Thanks Tim. That's sort of what I figured. But thought there might be some other trick and no, am not able to use fill flash.

 

[Craig]

Tim, can you give any tips for using fill flash in bright daylight? specifically taking pictures of people. Mine always seem to be overexposed.

to be more specific: just popping up the flash seems to overexpose. I usually shoot in A mode, but should I assume the camera is not smart enough to adjust to the flash?

 

[Tim]

hmmm... the fill flash is usually designed to 'power down' to just give enough flash to light the scene without blowing anything out. are you sure it's truly overexposing or does it just seem a bit too 'hot'? please post an example and let's see what we can come up with here...

 

[Roger]

Tim, can you give any tips for using fill flash in bright daylight? specifically taking pictures of people. Mine always seem to be overexposed.

to be more specific: just popping up the flash seems to overexpose. I usually shoot in A mode, but should I assume the camera is not smart enough to adjust to the flash?

That's odd. Generally Nikon's flash system gets better reviews than Canon's. But I've noticed that I have to use flash exposure lock for mine to get it right. My flash then fires a preflash and unless I'm doing rapid shots, the exposures are usually dead on then, maybe a little overexposed.

 

[Craig]

here are three pictures. The two with the dog are one right after another. My camera defaults to 1/60 when the flash is on. I can go into the menu and increase speed up to 200th. But, that seems to be harder than it should be for a new camera. Unless, I am expecting too much. My old camera is 17 years old (very manual) and I never even thought to get a new camera until last summer.
The one of us at Tony's isn't really overexposed, but to me the light just looks harsh and cold.

 

[Craig]

ok new plan. my camera seems to be easier to use fill flash during the day on P setting. it sets the shutter speed up to 200th that way. Actually p is a pretty neat setting. This one is new to me!

 

[Roger]

ok new plan. my camera seems to be easier to use fill flash during the day on P setting. it sets the shutter speed up to 200th that way. Actually p is a pretty neat setting. This one is new to me!

You know there is a joke on another forum for those with a sense of humor that "P" means the "Professional" mode on an SLR. But hey it's my understanding that the Canon models with a dial for modes seem to default in P mode to 1/60 sec as well. My favorite has to be though when I use the flash in Tv mode, set high speed sync at 1/500 sec, use FEL, and the camera just blinks and blinks the aperture of 4.0 since it thinks the scene will be too dark, and it comes out acceptably exposed.