How can I balance exposure and white balance when shooting from shade into bright sun?
Asked 4/2/2017
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I was photographing a scene while standing in the shade with bright sun illuminating the background. When I exposed for the shaded foreground, the sunlit background blew out; when I exposed for the background, the foreground became too dark. I’d like to keep some detail in both, especially the shaded fountain and pigeons. I also noticed the shaded areas and sunlit areas seem to have different color casts. What’s the best way to handle both the exposure range and white balance in this situation?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
9y ago
2 Answers
18
This is the situation when you use fill-flash.
Contrary to common belief, flash is NOT to be used in darkness. In darkness flash lights up the foreground and leaves background pitch black. Flash is best used to outshine bright light you can't control (like sun) so you can bring dark foreground up to bright background. This will most likely create white point imbalance, so you need to gel your flash with a matching yellow filter. *
Yes, it does sound like a lot of work, but you still have to do that work. Either before pressing shutter, with flash, gels and exposure or after, with photoshop.
What is a fill flash and how is it used?
https://expertphotography.com/how-to-fill-flash/
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/fill-flash.htm
https://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-mix-ambient-light-and-fill-flash-for-outdoor-portraits/ (The last one is pretty confusing about all that metering. I recommend to simply take a few test shoots while tweaking flash exposure and a bit of main exposure, you'll get the hang of it pretty fast. That is, if you use AE, because if you shot manual then adding flash to lighten up foreground would be rather straightforward.)
*EDIT: as mattdm pointed out, the shadow-filling flash is supposed to emulate the cooler diffused light, not the warmer direct sunlight. Typical flash already is at "daylight" color temperature so gelling it would be counterproductive for a shot like this. Maybe for people shots, as people look better in warmer light.
Originally by user37063. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user37063
9y ago
0
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You’re dealing with a scene whose brightness range exceeds what the camera can capture in one exposure. The simplest approach is to expose for the bright sunlit areas, shoot RAW at the lowest ISO, and then lift the shadows in RAW processing to recover some foreground detail.
White balance is also tricky because the sunlit areas and shaded areas are lit by different light sources: direct sun is warmer, while shade is lit more by the blue sky. A single white balance often won’t make both look perfect. In post, you can make separate versions with different white balances and blend them if needed.
If you want a better result in one shot, use fill flash to brighten the shaded foreground so it better matches the background. In strong daylight, flash is often used exactly for this purpose, not just in darkness. If you do use flash, matching its color with a gel can help avoid an obvious color mismatch.
So the main options are: expose for highlights and recover shadows from RAW, blend edits with different white balances, or add fill flash to reduce the contrast at capture time.
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