How can I expose both a backlit subject and the sun in the same portrait when my flash won't sync above 1/250s?
Asked 1/31/2014
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I want to shoot a portrait with the sun visible to the side of or behind my subject. Without flash, the face is too dark. I tried using 1/4000s, but my camera’s built-in flash will not fire above 1/250s. How can I make a shot where both the sun/background and the model are visible?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
12y ago
2 Answers
1
This it's not very difficult to do, and you don't need necessarily to set a shutter speed so fast (1/4000 or less) if you can accept closing very much diaphragm.
In this photo photo of mines you can see what I'm talking about.
You need to use as a stopped down diaphragm as possible to obtain a background (with the sun in it) correctly exposed, than you'll use a flash (at least) to light your subject, that will be strongly under exposed. The sample photo was taken at 1/250 f16 iso100. The flash was a not too much powerful nikon sb28 speedlight fired with a radio control, inmanual mode, at full power and put as possible near the subject model, to get it's max light. To try and andjust it's more easy than describing all this :) If you want to use bigger apertures of lens diaphragm you can consider using an ND filter on the lens to help too. Or use reflectors and flashes that can be used in 'High Speed Sync' mode to be able to use faster than 1/200 - 1/250 aperture times.
Originally by user25454. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user25454
12y ago
0
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Your built-in flash is limited by your camera’s normal flash sync speed, so it won’t work at 1/4000s unless you have a flash system that supports high-speed sync. A practical solution is to work at or below sync speed and control exposure with aperture and ISO instead.
Set a low ISO (for example ISO 100), stop down the lens significantly, and expose the background/sun first. Then add flash to light the subject, ideally with the flash as close as possible for maximum effect. A manual off-camera speedlight is often more effective than a built-in flash for this.
A typical approach is something like 1/250s, f/16, ISO 100, then raise flash power until the subject is bright enough.
If you want a wider aperture, you would generally need either a more capable flash setup or a different technique.
Another option, if the scene is static, is to shoot multiple exposures and combine them later as an HDR/blended image so both the bright sky/sun area and the subject are visible.
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