Sunday afternoon we stopped at a field of yellow wildflowers for an impromptu photo shoot. At 3:30 on a sunny afternoon, it wasn’t the perfect time for outdoor portraits but my people were together and dressed for Easter and I’d wanted to shoot in this field since I saw its expanse of green and yellow last week.
{Can you see the bubble floating above her head, blown by a brother or sister?}
ISO: 200
f/4.2
Shutter Speed: 1/2000
After the first couple of photos I looked at an image on the back of my camera and saw the harsh shadows and how much my daughter squinted; it’s a wonder she could even open her eyes and look at me in such bright light. She and I repositioned until her back was to the sun and I faced it.
ISO: 200
f/4.0
Shutter Speed: 1/2000
Without adjusting my settings, I took another photo. You’ve probably been frustrated by photos like this when facing the sun, where your camera exposes for the background and your subject is dark. Shooting digital spoils me and sometimes I take the mistake shots before thinking about how to correct for them.
ISO: 200
f/4.0
Shutter Speed: 1/500
The answer? Slow down your shutter speed. It lets more light into your camera so your subject isn’t so dark. Just put your camera in manual or shutter priority and play with it until you get a setting that works. The photo above was shot at the same ISO and aperture, but the shutter speed is 1/500 of a second instead of the original 1/2000 of a second.
{I know 1/500 of a second is still fast, but see what a difference it makes? That low f-stop also means my lens is wide open, letting in a lot of light, so the shutter needs to be fast. If you leave your shutter open too long in such bright light you’ll blow out the photo and it will be all or mostly white.}
ISO: 200
f/4.2
Shutter Speed: 1/500
The sun was so high that you still see some directly on her face. Ideally we could have turned her a little more, but I like these later shots and the way the backlight halos her hair.
ISO: 200
f/4.0
Shutter Speed: 1/2000
This is my breaking the rules shot but honestly? I love it, too: face to the sun so no shadows except from the sunglasses. It’s fun.
Does this help you? Do you ever shoot in manual and adjust your settings to compensate for your conditions?
