Sunset portraits

[moranphotography]

I am wanting to do some portraits at sunset with the sunset nicely exposed. I will be using my 450D, kit lens, 70-300 and 50mm f1.8 with my 580EXii and 24" and another flash available. Any suggestions for setting for this one?

Phil

 

[The23rdman]

Hi Phil,

Simple, but you have to work quick as the light changes quickly. There are no hard and fast settings - it's just a case of balancing the ambient with flah exposure.

Take your ambient reading for the sunset then decide whether you want that exposed + or - and adjust your shutter speed accordingly.

Use a 1/4 cut of CTO gel on your key flash and balance it how you like it. Seeings as you have another flash you can use that for a rim light for separation at around 2-3 stops under the key. CTO gell that if you wish.

 

[HoppyUK]

It's a doddle with E-TTL auto flash. Put the camera on Av, and it will match the overall exposure to the ambient light, eg sunset, and then the flash will match it's output to balance the foregound exposure with the f/number selected. Bang. Job done.

The main danger is that if the subject is off centre, as I guess it might be, then the flash might try to balance with the background which will obviously blast the foreground subject to bits. So use the flash exposure lock button (FEL marked * ). Basically, point the camera directly at the foreground subject, press the * button which will fire the pre-flash and calculate the correct flash exposure and it will lock it. Then re-frame the composition as you want and away you go - the main flash will fire at the correct power. The handbook explains this.

If either the foreground or background is too light or dark, then adjust the brightness of the background by adjusting the +/- exposure compensation on the camera. To alter the brightness of the foregound subject, adjust the +/- compensation on the gun. These two controls work independently.

If you're on auto white balance, this will automatically switch to flash. If you want a slightly warmer result straight out of the camera, whack the white balance up to 10,000K. This will also make the sunest a bit more orange too, but there's usually so much red in there anyway you'll hardly notice it. Might even prefer it.

 

[MatW]

Are these off-camera flash? I've been experimenting with this lately, and using M mode to keep things managable. I start at ISO100, 1/250 (max synch speed), then play with the apeture until the background looks good (usually a little underexposed). I leave the flash out of the equation at this point, as I concentrate on the background.

If you add your subject now, they will be more or less totally silhouetted. So it's a case of adding some light. I position my lights, and set the main light to be about 1/2 power and take a few test shots, then take it from there (adjust flash power/distance until happy).

I'm sure there are other ways of going about this but that way makes sense to me as you take care of the lighting as 2 separate jobs. I find it gets confusing if I don't think like this

I love this sort of thing, you can make your subject look almost 3D against the background.

 

[MatW]

Some of the fashion pictures on your website look like you're already pretty acomplished at this sort of thing!

 

[MattBristow]

Personally I always expose for the sunset after I have set the strobes ( I normally use a couple) and know what their out put then is. As stated before you need to work quickly and compensate for the changing light conditions and the sun sinks. For example.

EDIT I ought to say this is just the way that I have developed and am comfortable with.