The importance of light can never be overstated. Without light, no one would be able to see anything. Theoretically, everyone would be blind. It is the first light of morning that assures most of us that the day has begun, and it is this same light that assures those individuals working the graveyard shift that their work day is about to come to a close. For most people, the proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel” means the end of a sorrowful or difficult period. Light does have a direct effect on people’s emotions, easily affecting our moods. Almost everyone has had the blues, and this common type of depression is strongly associated with the winter season and its shorter amount of daylight.
Whether lighting is harsh, gentle, glaring, or diffused; whether it is cold or warm; whether it comes straight at us like a spotlight or from the side, behind, above, or below—it plays perhaps the greatest role in determining the mood of an image. When you photograph a stern-looking woman under diffused light, you temper her appearance. When you photograph a meek and soft-spoken teenage boy under harsh light, you can make him seem a bit cold and aloof. Both subjects would argue, “Hey, that’s not me,” upon seeing these photographs and for good reason. The quality of the light and the impression it creates are in direct contrast to the way the subjects define themselves. Similarly, your disappointing reaction to the close-up of the white rose in your garden is understandable, considering that the rose actually seems to be light blue. Such is the “color” of the light in open shade—blue. And such is the character of light—always changing, not always what it originally seems.
Another important aspect of light, which we’ll cover more in a minute, is its direction. Do you remember, as a small child, when you visited the Haunted House during Halloween? As you rounded the corner in that creaky hallway, you suddenly saw someone who appeared quite ugly and frightening for that fraction of a second that he held a flashlight under his chin and shined it on his face. The fear was in large measure due to the light and its angle across the “monster’s” face. Whether you photograph people or landscape, close-ups or abstract compositions, much of your image-making will probably involve some form of directional light: frontlight, sidelight, or backlight.
In addition, diffused light, a lighting condition embraced by experienced photographers, is akin to the light a studio photographer creates using soft boxes on electronic strobes, thereby causing the light to spread out evenly over the subject. Diffused outdoor lighting is ideal for shooting portraits, subjects in wooded areas, or close-ups of flowers.
And finally, all light—whether it’s frontlight, sidelight, backlight, or diffused light—imparts a color cast onto the subject, depending on the time of day. Morning light is warmer than midday light, and late afternoon light (shortly before sunset) is even warmer still, whereas diffused light can at times be “blue.”
The harbor of Marseille is one of the busiest in all of France. With my camera on a tripod, I was eager to shoot the many boats and houses as well as the distant fortress above the harbor—so eager, in fact, that I proceeded to shoot several images of the harbor knowing full well that at that moment a large cloud was moving across the sky and was blocking the sun. As you can clearly see, a blue color cast permeates the image (top). It’s the direct result of the harbor being under the “umbrella” of a cloudy sky, which will always produce blue light.
Within minutes, however, the large cloud had moved on, and warm late-afternoon light flooded the scene. The difference is clear. Which of the two is more inviting? Obviously, the warmer image.
Top: 80–200mm lens, f/22 for 1/20 sec.
Bottom: 80–200mm lens, f/22 for 1/125 sec.
What is meant by frontlight? It’s light that hits the front of your subject, as if your camera were a giant spotlight bathing everything in front of it in light. Of course your camera doesn’t actually do this, but the sun sure can! For most of your picture-taking efforts, you should get in the habit of shooting subjects when they are frontlit, and also early in the morning or late in the afternoon when the sun is at a low angle to the horizon (and therefore not as harsh and unflattering as midday light). For some of us that means our sleep will be interrupted or our dinner will be delayed.
Failing to shoot when the sun is at low angles to the horizon will often spell disaster in your images for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the absence of warm and flattering light. It doesn’t take long for that giant “spotlight” of the sun to get high in the sky, and yet, in the times when many amateurs are out shooting—10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on any given clear summer day—the light is very harsh, without any real warmth, and it is famous for creating raccoon shadows under the eyes of your human subjects. Midday light, as it is called, should be reserved for sitting by the pool and working on your tan!
When experienced photographers speak enthusiastically about frontlight, they are most often referring to its color: the golden hues of morning light and the orange-golden hues of sunset. These colors bring warmth, passion, intensity, and sentiment to any subject, whether it is a person, an animal, or a landscape.
LIGHT: HUMAN EYE VS. CAMERA
The human eye can see light and dark simultaneously. In terms of camera stops, the human eye can see and register a range of 16 stops. Film cameras were known for being able to see only a 5-stop range, and the most current of SLR digital cameras can see only a 6-stop range. So what can you do when you want to record a range of light that’s greater than 6 stops? Take several different exposures of the same composition—on a tripod, of course—and when you return home, “blend” them together in Photoshop (see this page).
The low-angled frontlight in this image casts its warm glow across my wife, Kathy, in a field of poppies, accentuating her warm and inviting expression. With my camera on a monopod, I set the aperture to f/5.6, and because she was wearing white, I pointed the camera to the green field to her right to adjust my shutter speed until a −2/3 exposure was indicated. Metering for frontlit green at −2/3, will assure you of a correct exposure overall, even when white is a dominate part of the overall composition. (See this page for more specifics on metering.)
80–200mm lens, f/5.6
Sidelight hits one side of a subject, illuminating only part of it and leaving the other parts in “darkness.” The subject takes on a three-dimensional quality due to the illusion of depth created by the contrast between light and dark. As a result, sidelight is often considered the most dramatic type of lighting. Subjects that are sidelit suggest mystery and intrigue, intimacy and sensuality, as well as deception and the underworld.
Both painters and photographers of the nude have made sidelight their number one choice, as the interaction of light and shadow reveals and defines the form of their subjects. Another classic use of sidelight has been perfected by Hollywood: sidelighting the criminal’s face. This foreboding image can cause viewers to shiver at the unspeakable horrors that certainly must be lurking in the criminal’s mind.
Sidelight is also responsible for bringing texture to the surface. A composition of rough hands or a wrinkled face is “felt” much more deeply when sidelit. And, not surprisingly, the optimal conditions for recording sidelit subjects are once again in the early morning or late afternoon.
The intensity of texture is increased a hundredfold when that texture is sidelit. Something as simple as footprints in the sand along a shoreline take on a lifelike feeling when sidelit by the low-angled light of the setting sun. Another chief advantage to low-angled sidelight is that, unlike with low-angled frontlight, you don’t have to worry about your long shadow getting in the way in the composition! For this shot, I placed my camera on a tripod, set my aperture to f/8, and let the camera set the shutter speed for me via Aperture Priority mode.
When I made this image, I was reminded of the saying, The reward is not in the planning of your journey, but knowing that you are now on your way.
18–70mm lens, f/8 for 1/180 sec.
The Rhine and the Moselle rivers of Germany are a castle lover’s paradise, and the best time of day to shoot Castle Cochem on the Moselle river is late afternoon when it is sidelit. The resulting shadows and warm light create an image with depth and volume.
Arriving early one morning last fall, I was quickly disheartened to see such a strong veil of overcast light (top), but I was assured by the locals that this would dissipate by midday. When you find yourself confronted with “bad light,” take advantage of the time to do your scouting. Bad light is great light for scouting, I have often said. I promptly set off hiking around the hillside vineyards, looking for preferred vantage points from which to shoot the castle should better light arrive later on that afternoon. And as luck would have it, the light returned and my hoped-for castle shot did happen—and, clearly, the warm light of late afternoon (bottom) is far more inviting than the much cooler, bluish composition taken earlier that morning. With my camera on a tripod, I metered off the vineyards behind the castle, adjusted my shutter speed until 1/100 sec. indicated a correct exposure, and then recomposed the shot you see here and shot several frames.
80–200mm lens, f/16 for 1/100 sec.
If you’re still not convinced that early morning and late afternoon provide the best light, perhaps I can still change your mind when it comes to backlight. It is backlight (when the light hits the back of your subject) that renders so many subjects as silhouettes. Backlight will always find you reaching for your sunglasses or, at the least, shading your eyes. Why? Because to shoot backlight, you must be facing the light source, and most often that means you are facing the sun itself.
Unlike sidelight, which conceals the subject in partial darkness, backlight can cloak the entire subject in total darkness. The resulting silhouetted shape—whether it’s a tree, building, or person—is devoid of all details. This stripping away of a subject’s individual characteristics might explain why many photographers prefer not to shoot silhouetted subjects. Without the details, the image is meaningless, or so the argument goes. I couldn’t disagree more! Since silhouetting a subject does reduce it to but one element—shape—it’s quite gratifying to showcase this shape against the backdrop of a sunrise or sunset. That lone oak tree on the horizon doesn’t get its due until it is backlit against the early morning sunrise. The silhouetted couple on the beach in a warm embrace against the setting sun reminds all of us about love and romance. And because the couple is strictly rendered in the exposure as a shape, it is much easier to imagine that “that could be us.”
THINK AHEAD
Whenever I shoot sunrises or sunsets, I always think about how I could use the image as a “digital sandwich” later and compose accordingly. This was certainly the case when I made the photo below, as you can see on this page.
Luck can play a big part of one’s success in image-making, and as with the lottery, you can’t win if you don’t play. Although I had nothing in mind when I headed out the door to shoot the last hour of light and a hoped-for sunset, I knew that just being out “in it” I would find something. A roadside ditch of wild oats and various grasses, proved to be fertile ground for making this backlit image of a lone feather against the light of the setting sun. With my camera on a tripod, I set my aperture, and while metering in manual exposure mode, I pointed the camera to the left of the feather and adjusted the shutter speed off the backlit sky—without the sun in the frame—until 1/400 sec. indicated a correct exposure. I then recomposed and shot the image you see here.
70–300mm lens, f/5.6 for 1/400 sec.
Who doesn’t like silhouettes? Backlight is the key, and when composed against a rising or setting sun, any object in front of the resulting strong backlight will surely be rendered as a silhouette—if you set the exposure for the bright background.
Contributing to the richness of this sunset image was the large amount of smoke in the air from area forest fires. The smoke was so thick in the air that no amount of filters or “Photoshopping” could have ever rendered such vivid colors. With my camera on a tripod, I set my aperture, took a meter reading from the bright sky to the left of the sun, adjusted my shutter speed until a correct exposure was indicated, and recomposed.
80–400mm lens, f/16 for 1/100 sec.
What about those times when the subject is backlit and you don’t want to make a silhouette? When a subject has any degree of transparency, it can “glow” when backlit, rendering not only shape but, as in the case of dew-covered grasses, some wonderful textures, as well. When I stopped by the side of the road here, I was quickly immersed in a world of “jewel-laden” grasses and countless close-focus opportunities.
With my camera and 70–180mm Micro lens on a tripod, I set my aperture to f/11, adjusted my shutter speed until 1/125 sec. indicated a correct exposure, and fired off several frames. It was imperative, as it is when shooting most close-ups, that I choose a point of view parallel to the subject since depth of field becomes quite shallow when shooting close-ups.
70–180mm Micro lens, f/11 for 1/125 sec.
FORGET THE HISTOGRAM
If you haven’t discovered the histogram on your camera, consider yourself lucky. For those who have discovered it, forget you ever did—if you can. It’s a useless tool the main purpose of which, it seems, is to cause hysteria in photographers, who are often seen stooped over their camera monitors lamenting over “blown-out highlights” or “blocked shadows” instead of realizing that with backlight you always get blown out highlights and/or blocked shadows (even with film)! Until there’s a camera that records the full 16-stop range of light seen by the human eye, blown-out highlights and blocked shadows are here to stay. Currently, most DSLR cameras can only record a 6- to 7-stop range. So, don’t focus on your histogram so much.
Diffused light is soft, with subtle shadows. This illumination is much kinder to the face and evokes feelings of calm. It also minimizes wrinkles and other skin imperfections. (Of course, with Photoshop even small pimples or wrinkles are an easy fix, but the task of fixing these elements is much easier when they’re photographed in frontlight or diffused light.) Diffused light is also the light of choice for many experienced nature photographers. The almost shadowless quality of diffused light makes exposures of waterfalls, for example, much easier due to the absence of contrast.
Nothing could be easier than determining exposure when you’re working with diffused light. Whether you’re shooting a portrait, a flower, or autumn leaves on the forest floor, every part of the image is uniformly lit. So, photographing scenes in diffused light is simply a matter of composing, focusing, and shooting. There are no bright highlights or dark shadows to confuse your light meter.
So that there’s no confusion, however, diffused light is not identical to the light present when thick rain clouds fill the sky. Even though you can look up at the sky in diffused-light conditions, you should still be able to spot the sun behind the thin veil of clouds. If you look up at the sky and have no idea where the sun is, then you’re shooting under the dark cloud of a threatening rainstorm.
Also, open shade is not diffused light either, but rather is nothing more than an area where the sun would normally shine but is presently being blocked by a building or a tree or some other object. Open shade is by far the bluest of light, as many unsuspecting wedding photographers have discovered. No bride likes to see herself in a blue wedding dress. This blue light contaminates everything—some things more severely than others—and most noticeably whites and light pastels. If you’re still looking for an excuse to change from auto white balance to the Cloudy setting this would be the lighting condition in which to do it.
Part of an assignment I shot for a gold mining company in Mexico included making pictures of many of the children who attended a nearby school. The gold mine had donated quite a bit of money to the school for books and supplies, and had also paid for a new addition, and they wanted to call attention to this in their annual report to the stockholders. Eight large windows, on both sides of the schoolhouse, created some bright yet diffused light inside, and it made my job much easier since, once again, light levels were relatively even. With my camera on a tripod, and my aperture set to f/5.6, I just aimed, focused, and shot, letting Aperture Priority mode select the shutter speed.
80–200mm lens, f/5.6 for 1/60 sec.
If there’s an outdoor market nearby and diffused light overhead, grab your camera gear and tripod and do some “shopping.” Because of the color and truly showstopping patterns, outdoor markets continue to be a favorite haunt of mine. I swear some of the vendors at these markets have a degree in color theory or at the least have a graphic design background. How else can you explain their very graphic and colorful displays of arranged fruits and vegetables?
Oftentimes, I can travel very light when going to these markets, carrying just my camera and my 18–70mm f/2.8 Nikkor lens. The lens is wide enough for some shots, yet with its moderate telephoto end, I can just as easily come in tight on my subjects when closer cropping is called for. For the mound of strawberries above, I used a tripod and set my aperture to f/8. Since the light levels were even, I had no problem working in Aperture Priority mode, allowing the camera to set the shutter speed for me.
Another plus when shooting outdoor markets: Most if not all of the photographs you take are immediate contenders for your kitchen wall. If you’re looking for some easy yet compelling imagery for the kitchen, outdoor markets are the place to go.
First: 18–70mm lens, f/8 for 1/180 sec.
Second: 18–55mm lens, f/11 for 1/90 sec.
As explained earlier, noise is normally associated with ISO—the higher the ISO, the more noise, or grain, appearing on the image. Short of using lower ISOs, there’s no way around the noise problem. It is, for the time being, here to stay. (But, see this page for some in-computer solutions to the noise problem.)
Noise goes hand in hand with picture quality. The more noise you record, the less sharpness there is in the image. Overall colors are affected, and the overall image looks like it has been pinpricked.
Another thing that creates noise is a long exposure time. There is a “breakdown” in the image sensor’s ability to expose for long periods of time. For lack of a better description, it’s as if the Pixel family is unable to “concentrate” long enough on the image that’s flooding their house, and they quite simply fall apart and have a nervous breakdown. The result: noise.
And what do I mean by a long exposure? I’ve found that noise becomes quite apparent on exposure times that are longer than 8 seconds. For the most part, that should have minimal effect on most photographers, since most (whether shooting film or digital) are not inclined to shoot exposures as long as 8 seconds. The biggest reason for this is threefold: (1) a lack of motivation, since “there isn’t that much to shoot in low light” (this is not true by the way); (2) uncertainty about how to set the exposure; and finally, (3) the need, in most situations, to use a tripod.
But, if you’ve been looking for a great excuse to use your camera in manual-exposure mode, try this: Grab your tripod, and stand outside your house at dusk, leaving just a few lights on inside. If you live in an apartment, just look around until you find a comparably illuminated subject. After deciding which lens to use—and regardless of what direction you’re facing—anchor your camera to the tripod, set the aperture to f/11, and tilt the camera up to the dusky sky above the house, filling as much as 80 percent of the frame with sky. Adjust your shutter speed until the camera meter indicates a correct exposure, and then leave it alone. Recompose the scene of your house, and make take the shot. If my hunch is correct, this will be the start of many nights when you opt out of watching “must-see TV” for taking “must-shoot pictures” instead.
Right near sunset, the last rays of light are joined with the first hints of the dusky, colored light to come. It is at this time of day that the quality of light is so magical that you will always come away with a compelling image—always! At dusk, both natural light and artificial light “are on the same page,” so you needn’t worry about blown out highlights. For example, in this image the two tungsten-bulb safety lights (which were at the top of a stairway on the deck of an oil tanker) and the sunset itself are the “same” exposure.
17–55mm lens, f/16 for 1/4 sec.
Just because there’s no sky in this composition doesn’t mean that I didn’t use the sky to set my exposure to capture this view in Lyon, France. With my camera on a tripod, I set the focal length (35mm) and aperture (f/8 because “Who cares?” what aperture I use when everything is at the same focused distance—in this case, infinity), and then pointed the camera above the distant horizon into the dusky blue sky to meter. I adjusted the shutter speed until 4 seconds was indicated as the correct exposure and then recomposed. I tripped the shutter release with the camera’s self-timer and shot several frames.
35–70mm lens at 35mm, f/8 for 4 seconds
Beginning about fifteen minutes after sunset and lasting for only about ten minutes beyond that, the dusky blue sky will be the same exposure as a cityscape in front of it. After this short ten-minute window, the sky goes black, and this black sky is what most photographers end up shooting, as the numerous photo contest entries of “cityscapes at night” attest. The serious photographic downside to this time of night is in the compositional arena, as the dark sky doesn’t offer up the much needed contrast/color separation between it and the other objects in the image. To see what I mean, take a look at these three images of Times Square in New York City.
The popularity of photographing this location is such that you’d be wise to stake your claim (i.e., a spot on the sidewalk) about thirty minutes before dusk. When the lights come on and the sky turns blue, you have several options. If you didn’t bring your tripod, or you don’t even own one, you can still easily get a handholdable exposure with ISO 640. The first image above is an example of this: I handheld my camera and I pointed the camera to the dusky blue sky above the city to meter the scene. The resulting exposure “froze” the moving traffic. In addition, there is still a nice difference between the sky and the buildings.
It has been my preference, however, to shoot city scenes that capture all of the motion therein. This involves using the longest possible exposure times, and with the current digital technology and related noise factors, 8 seconds is about the maximum exposure time one can successfully record. This is certainly enough time—if you begin the exposure when the traffic is moving through the scene at its maximum capacity. So about five minutes after taking the image above, I placed my same camera and lens on a tripod, set my ISO and aperture, and again pointed the camera to the dusky blue sky above the city to meter. I adjusted my shutter speed until 4 seconds indicated a correct exposure, and then recomposed. As indicated by the line of red taillights, I was able to record the motion of the city traffic (second image). I’m sure you’ll notice that the sky in this exposure is a bit darker. That’s because I “lost” a few minutes in setting up this shot after making the image above. But despite this loss of light in the sky, there is still enough contrast between it and the surrounding buildings, so those pesky mergers have been avoided.
Finally, as an example of why it’s not a good idea to shoot city scenes after the short window of dusky blue sky has vanished, note the final exposure (third image) taken ten minutes later. There is not nearly the same contrast between the buildings and the sky; in effect, there are now a number of “mergers” going on in this composition.
First: 12–24mm lens, ISO 640, f/8 for 1/30 sec.
Second: 12–24mm lens, ISO 100, f/22 for 4 seconds
Third: 12–24mm lens, f/16 for 4 seconds
One of the most frequent questions in my on-location workshops is: How would you meter this? Regardless of subject, there never seems to be just one answer. Finding a subject seems to be the easy part for most shooters; not knowing how to take the meter reading seems to be the hard part.
The good news is that today’s digital SLR is truly an amazing piece of machinery, and nowhere is this more evident than in the SLR’s ability to meter a scene. Nikon continues to be at the forefront of this revolution, and it all started some years ago when the company introduced matrix metering. Matrix metering has become the standard in the digital industry, and it’s all made possible by a computer chip.
In Nikon’s case, a chip was programmed with more than a million different and correctly exposed pictures that were taken all over the world, outdoors and indoors, in every possible lighting and weather condition. The subject matter included close-ups, landscapes, abstracts, industrial shots, nature scenes, and, of course, people. So now, with your Nikon camera set in Matrix metering mode, you head out the door and frame up that red rose in your garden. With your macro lens in place, and because you want as much depth of field as possible, you have chosen an aperture of f/32. With the camera in Aperture Priority mode, you can allow the matrix metering to calculate the correct shutter speed, knowing full well that it has seen your rose before under these exact lighting conditions. And sure enough, if you check the LCD, you will see the perfectly exposed rose. Exposure has never been easier!
Does this mean that foolproof exposure has finally arrived? Not quite, and here are two reasons why this will probably never be the case: The first is that, as with any computer, there will always be the occasional “bug” in the system; in other words, there will always be some scenes that will fool matrix metering, and at these times, I resort to setting my exposure manually (see this page). The second, and perhaps most important, is that matrix metering has no idea when you want great depth of field or shallow depth of field, nor does it know if you want to imply motion, pan, or freeze action; these are decisions you must make. And most discerning pros make them with the camera in manual exposure mode.
So that there’s no confusion, I’m not suggesting that, despite the advances made with digital SLRs, we all must resign ourselves to shooting in manual exposure mode. In fact, what I am suggesting is that we all can, for the most part, feel safe and secure when shooting in Aperture Priority mode. This is the mode to use when depth of field is an issue. You can feel just as secure with your exposures when shooting in Shutter Priority mode for those times when shutter speed is your primary concern. I, like so many other seasoned professionals, have been scared to death by the promise of matrix metering. I had been shooting in manual exposure mode, using center-weighted metering for so long that anything else felt unsafe and unreliable; this, despite the claims made by matrix metering.
Only recently, over the course of the past six months, have I tested the waters of matrix metering. I’ve allowed myself the freedom of shooting in Aperture Priority mode, and I feel truly liberated by the results. I shot many of the images in this book in Aperture Priority mode, and that, for me, is one of the biggest photographic milestones I’ve ever crossed.
I want to digress here for a just a moment and address one of the most common questions I get: Why not just shoot in the fully automatic exposure mode (better known as Program mode) and then quickly review the histogram on the camera’s LCD monitor? The thinking being that if the histogram shows that the exposure is wrong, you can make some adjustments by using the + or − controls on the camera and shoot again.
Although the question is valid, it fails to take into account so many other variables that go into the art of creative exposure. First of all, in Program Mode there’s no real control over depth of field or shutter speed. I’m fully aware of the latest offerings on some cameras, such as Program Landscape mode, Program Action mode, and Program Close-Up mode. These are, for all intents and purposes, nothing more than a narrow and preset exposure parameter for shooting some landscapes, some action-filled scenes, and some close-up scenes—but the key word here is some, not all!
Students who have fallen into the trap of shooting in these modes are quick to discover the lack of consistency in their exposures. The histogram is nothing more than a record of the quantitative value of the exposure relative to its highlights and shadows, and has nothing to do with the creative value of the exposure. Save yourself both time and trouble. Turn off the histogram, and if necessary, get a pair of reading glasses so that you can better see the creative exposure you’re hoping for when you view the monitor.
The greatest gift you can give yourself in the exposure arena is teaching yourself how to use your camera in manual exposure mode and then calling upon manual exposure mode for those “difficult” exposures. Short of that, shooting in semiautomatic mode is a good idea as it saves time, but you should resign yourself to the Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority modes only since either mode allows you to still retain full creativity over your exposures.
In addition, always shooting in autoexposure doesn’t take into account another important element of image-making: what Henri Cartier-Bresson called the Decisive Moment. In the time you take to check your monitor, review the histogram, and make whatever adjustments you feel are necessary, the subject before you will have either turned away from the camera or moved on to another activity or disappeared. Imagine if that bull moose is now showing you its backside or your one-year-old daughter grows tired of taking her first steps and sits down to play with a toy, or the bee that was pollinating the very flower you focused on has since moved on to another. All of these Decisive Moments are now gone.
How is your histogram going to help you in situations of strong backlight and action? It can’t! If you blow this difficult exposure, what are you going to do? Ask the kids (whom you don’t know) to run through the fountain again in the exact same way they did when you tried to get the exposure right the first time?
Learning how to “read” difficult exposures is the most logical step, and when metering backlight for a silhouette effect, I always take my meter reading—in manual—from the sky to the left of, the right of, or above the sun. After setting my aperture and taking my meter reading from the sky to the right of the sun (while handholding the camera), I adjusted my shutter speed and, over the course of the next five minutes, made a number of frames of these kids playing tag in a fountain.
12–24mm lens, f/16 for 1/320 sec.
I’ve begun to embrace and trust Nikon’s matrix metering with a greater fervor than ever before. As you may have noticed, and as I mentioned on this page, some of the images in this book were shot in Aperture Priority mode (I picked the aperture and the camera/light meter picked the shutter speed). But even though my dependence on manual metering has lessened, I still find that it is necessary to meter in manual exposure mode when I am presented with “difficult” exposures.
These exposures are not difficult because I couldn’t decide how much or how little depth of field I needed, or because I couldn’t decide if I should freeze or imply motion, but rather, they were difficult because of the light! Sometimes, despite matrix or five-point metering, the light meter will still be fooled and render an exposure that’s either too light or too dark. Here again, Photoshop can help when you really blow an exposure, but again, I have to ask myself, Why not get it right in camera rather than spend all the time needed to correct it in Photoshop?
A classic example of a “difficult” exposure is the backlit portrait. Shooting backlit portraits can produce some powerful and emotion-filled imagery if you know where to take your meter reading and you use a reflector. The warm light that often illuminates the edges of the hair when a person is backlit creates a warm and healthy appearance. You must shoot outdoor backlit portraits when the sun is at a low angle in the sky, either early morning or late afternoon. As you frame up a backlit portrait, there’s a danger in the light meter being fooled by the excessively bright rim light around the hair, which can cause a false meter reading.
As you can see in the first example (top), with the camera again set on Aperture Priority mode and my aperture set to f/5.6, the meter produced an exposure (1/500 sec.) that proved to be okay for the backlight but not for the face itself, which is rendered about two stops too dark. Granted, since I was shooting in raw mode, I could just as easily have added two stops of light to the face in postprocessing, but I would have had to use the Marquee tool in Photoshop, making certain that only the face was the “live” area so that when I brought its exposure up two stops I didn’t overexpose the rim-lit hair another two stops. The time spent in Photoshop to make this correction would have been about ten minutes at least. Why not opt instead to use a reflector?
I sometimes use a reflector with backlit subjects, and this is particularly true for backlit portraits. A reflector is a circular piece of highly reflective fabric stretched tightly over a collapsible metal ring. The fabric is either shiny gold, shiny silver, or a sheer white material. Sizes can range from twelve inches in diameter to up to three feet. When pointed toward the light source (the sun in most outdoor cases), the reflector acts likes a dull mirror, reflecting back much of the light onto the subject. In this case, my wife held an eighteen-inch reflector with its gold foil side facing the western sky and sun (middle). Gold light was then “bounced” onto her face. With my camera still set to the original exposure, I shot an additional exposure, and as you can see, the added fill light from the reflector made the exposure for the face correct (bottom).
All photos: f/5.6 for 1/500 sec.
For backlit flowers, I’ll sometimes use a reflector. Without it, it’s a challenge to get both the petals and the center of a backlit flower acceptably exposed. For backlit landscapes, I’ll often rely on my graduated neutral-density filter. No camera on the market today can record, within a single exposure, the vast range of light and dark that exists within a backlit scene. In the “old days,” photographers just had to grin and bear it, knowing full well that the happy medium of overexposing the backlight in order to bring up the foreground darkness was the best they could do.
Then someone had the brilliant idea to make a filter that, when placed over the front of the lens, would reduce the exposure of just the backlit sky by several stops, making the exposure for the backlit area much closer to that of the foreground area. The rest is history and graduated neutral-density filters have been around for at least ten years now. Despite Photoshop’s promise of being able to correct the backlit exposure situation I’ve just described, I still subscribe to the belief that if I can correct something in camera, I will—since it will save me time!
Without the reflector here, I was able to get an acceptable exposure for the petals since petals themselves are somewhat transparent, but note the dark center of the flower. It’s dark simply because it isn’t transparent, and the exposure time required for it would be much longer than the time needed for the backlit petals.
The solution was to place some fill light onto the flower with my gold reflector. Holding the reflector up and out of camera range, of course, I was able to reflect much-needed sunlight back onto the dark center of the flower, and presto, the difference is clear.
Both photos: 80–200mm lens, f/8 for 1/200 sec.
What do you do when you set an exposure for a backlit landscape and you don’t want the foreground to go excessively dark? You reach for your graduated neutral-density filter. With my camera on a tripod, I chose a low viewpoint to convey the texture on the sandy beach, and since I wanted this to be a storytelling image (one with lots of detail/focus throughout), I set the aperture to f/22. To meter, I pointed the camera down toward the sand and adjusted the shutter speed until the meter indicated that 1/8 sec. was a correct exposure. I then recomposed to include the setting sun. When I did this, the meter indicated a correct shutter speed of 1/125 sec., but I ignored that reading and instead placed a four-stop graduated neutral-density filter on the lens. I slid the filter down into the holder on the front of my lens until the area of density was covering the section of the image from the top of the frame to the horizon line.
All I had to do was fire the shutter release (at f/22 for 1/8 sec.), and I knew I would record a correct exposure for the foreground as well as for the distant sun and horizon. Without the filter, the sun and sky are blown out.
12–24mm lens, f/22 for 1/8 sec.
Photoshop can come into play very effectively when you are faced with extreme exposure differences for which no amount of exposure know-how will save the day. For example, Photoshop can do a great job of acting like a graduated neutral-density filter, or it can come to the rescue when you want to record detail in both the shadows and the highlights. (See this page for more on this.)
