Shooting in daylight with only 1/200 syncspeed?

rgrebby

rgrebby

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Is there a trick to getting both bright sky and person in even exposure.

Im guessing the trick is to set the exposure for the sky, something like 1/200 and f16. The trouble is lighting the person with a flash and umbrella. It just doesnt seem powerful.
 
ND grad is the way I go. What about a reflector to bounce the light back at the subject?
 
Silly question but why would an ND grad help? Surely if you were at 1/200th at f/16 and then you filter the sky, you would be 1/200th at a smaller f-stop? Where 1/200th is your sync speed. Would it not be easier to reduce the shutter speed to 1/100th sec at F/13 which would allow more from the flash as it's only the aperture that affects strobes not shutter speed. Another way would be to bump up the ISO, so you wouldn't need a smaller aperture, maybe shoot at around f/8 @ 1/200th ISO 200-400? Prosuming the flash would be freezing the model anyway?

Sorry if i'm way off the mark there, that was my understanding of ambient and strobes?
 
Lowering the shutter speed and f number would blow the sky out, ISO effects the strobe too.

The idea is to get both sky and subject in correct exposure.
 
n30_mkii said:
Silly question but why would an ND grad help? Surely if you were at 1/200th at f/16 and then you filter the sky, you would be 1/200th at a smaller f-stop? Where 1/200th is your sync speed. Would it not be easier to reduce the shutter speed to 1/100th sec at F/13 which would allow more from the flash as it's only the aperture that affects strobes not shutter speed. Another way would be to bump up the ISO, so you wouldn't need a smaller aperture, maybe shoot at around f/8 @ 1/200th ISO 200-400? Prosuming the flash would be freezing the model anyway?

Sorry if i'm way off the mark there, that was my understanding of ambient and strobes?
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A grad ND CAN help by reducing the effective exposure of the sky.
But the answer is to have a lot more flash power than a hotshoe flash can provide. There are quite a few manufacturers who produce professional battery powered studio flash
 
Meter for the sky set your flash to manual and use your judgement to create the right effect. If the sky is still overexposed then take the portrait using RAW and blend the 2 files together, exposing (in your raw converter) one for the sky and one for the subject.

Here's an example of a couple I did earlier http://www.edwardmoss.co.uk/portrait/P4/
http://www.edwardmoss.co.uk/portrait/P13/

Both took around 5 minutes to take and around 15 minutes to post process.
 
Edtog said:
Both took around 5 minutes to take and around 15 minutes to post process.
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Surely that's a good reason for using a powerful flash in the first place?

I seem to loose a LOT of power when using an umbrella
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And that's another reason. Even the best hotshoe flashes only produce about 60 Joules, professional battery powered generators usually have 10x more.
 
Perhaps I'm being incredibly stupid but why won't a bit of fill in work have you got an example of what you've done so far??

Only problem with a ND grad is if the person appears in the shot where the filter is, it would be ok if they're "under" the filter effect.
 
The saying is "meter for the background, light for the foreground" I like to underexpose my backgrounds a little and that helps to negate the lack of power from the speedlight. When it's dark, the speedlight can get the light in there, when it's already bright, it's going to seriously struggle.

And Garry is right (but then, he usually is with this stuff :))
 
rgrebby said:
Is there a trick to getting both bright sky and person in even exposure.

Im guessing the trick is to set the exposure for the sky, something like 1/200 and f16. The trouble is lighting the person with a flash and umbrella. It just doesnt seem powerful.
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Remember, when shooting with flash it is the shutter speed that controls the ambient portion of the exposure.

Stopping down to f/16 will only affect the flash-lit part of the shot - try opening up to around f/10 and have a play about up and down with the settings from there.
 
Flash In The Pan said:
Remember, when shooting with flash it is the shutter speed that controls the ambient portion of the exposure.
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Don't think that is correct, if you change either the shutter speed or the aperture you will effect the ambient portion of the exposure.

Flash In The Pan said:
Stopping down to f/16 will only affect the flash-lit part of the shot - try opening up to around f/10 and have a play about up and down with the settings from there.
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Of course it won't, if you have metered for the background and got f16, opening up the aperture to f10 will everexpose your background by 1 and 1/3 stops.
 
EdBray said:
Don't think that is correct, if you change either the shutter speed or the aperture you will effect the ambient portion of the exposure.



Of course it won't, if you have metered for the background and got f16, opening up the aperture to f10 will everexpose your background by 1 and 1/3 stops.
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Sorry Ed, but you're confusing natural light shooting with flash
 
Flash In The Pan said:
Sorry Ed, but you're confusing natural light shooting with flash
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But he is shooting natural light. And anything you do to the controls WILL affect the ambient portion of the exposure.

The only thing that will not be affected by a change is the flash exposure if you change the shutter speed, anything else will affect that too. So yes, opening up the aperture from f16 to f10 will give you more flash light BUT unless you increase the shutter speed by the same proportion your background WILL be over exposed.

Now that may be fine if you are shooting at 1/60th at f16 as you could then shoot at 1/160th at f10 to give you the same background exposure whilst gaining some light from the flash, but the OP stated 1/200th at f16 so if you open up the aperture to f10 then you would need to compensate with the shutter speed to 1/500th sec to keep the backgound exposure correct and this would not give him a useable flash sync unless he is using a leaf shutter as high sync flash would lose him the power he is trying to gain from opening up the aperture.
 
EdBray said:
But he is shooting natural light. And anything you do to the controls WILL affect the ambient portion of the exposure.

The only thing that will not be affected by a change is the flash exposure if you change the shutter speed, anything else will affect that too. So yes, opening up the aperture from f16 to f10 will give you more flash light BUT unless you increase the shutter speed by the same proportion your background WILL be over exposed.

Now that may be fine if you are shooting at 1/60th at f16 as you could then shoot at 1/160th at f10 to give you the same background exposure whilst gaining some light from the flash, but the OP stated 1/200th at f16 so if you open up the aperture to f10 then you would need to compensate with the shutter speed to 1/500th sec to keep the backgound exposure correct and this would not give him a useable flash sync unless he is using a leaf shutter as high sync flash would lose him the power he is trying to gain from opening up the aperture.
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Clicky
 
Flash In The Pan said:
Clicky
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So you keep pointing me to an article that is specifically about INDOOR mixing of flash and ambient light sources when the original poster is asking about balancing the flash exposure with the sky!

How many places exactly are you aware of where the sky is indoors?
 
saying that shutter speed effects ambient and aperture only effects flash is just not true.

Yes, shutter speed had no relevance to the flash, with the exception of sync speed. But aperture will effect what ambient light as well as flash.
 
rgrebby said:
saying that shutter speed effects ambient and aperture only effects flash is just not true.

Yes, shutter speed had no relevance to the flash, with the exception of sync speed. But aperture will effect what ambient light as well as flash.
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I think that you are wasting your time, there are no so blind as cannot see!
 
EdBray said:
So you keep pointing me to an article that is specifically about INDOOR mixing of flash and ambient light sources when the original poster is asking about balancing the flash exposure with the sky!

How many places exactly are you aware of where the sky is indoors?
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You obviously didn't read the post in last link.

Never mind,I didn't realise the laws of physics were different when outdoors :shrug:
 
EdBray said:
Don't think that is correct, if you change either the shutter speed or the aperture you will effect the ambient portion of the exposure.
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You think wrong. :nono:

Slowing your shutter speed down increases the amount of ambient light getting through to your camera's sensor. Indoor or outdoor.
 
I've read what Ed Bray has written and what is in the linked article and can't see any conflict between the two. I'll watch with interest to see what is supposed to be wrong.

As I'm away for the weekend and browsing on a netbook that may be tomorrow.
 
EdBray said:
Isn't that what I was saying?
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Yes :)

Flash is affected by Aperture, it is not affected by Shutter speed as long as you do not have a Hyperspeed shutter and keep it slower then the sync speed.

Ambient is affected by Aperture and Shutter speed, indoors ambient may not register if there is very low lighting.

Who agrees? :D
 
Suvv said:
Yes :)

Flash is affected by Aperture, it is not affected by Shutter speed as long as you do not have a Hyperspeed shutter and keep it slower then the sync speed.

Ambient is affected by Aperture and Shutter speed, indoors ambient may not register if there is very low lighting.

Who agrees? :D
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Sorry but not me :(

Shutter speed is the valve for ambient light and aperture is a general valve.
 
Flash In The Pan said:
Remember, when shooting with flash it is the shutter speed that controls the ambient portion of the exposure.

NOT TRUE, Both aperture changes and shutter speed changes will affect the ambient light.

Stopping down to f/16 will only affect the flash-lit part of the shot - try opening up to around f/10 and have a play about up and down with the settings from there.

Again not true, this will have the effect of overexposing the background by 1 & 1/3 stops unless you adjust the shutter speed to balance the exposure.
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Tomas Whitehouse said:
You think wrong. :nono:

Slowing your shutter speed down increases the amount of ambient light getting through to your camera's sensor. Indoor or outdoor.
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Quite true and I have never disputed that fact!

EdBray said:
Isn't that what I was saying?
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Tomas Whitehouse said:
Erm no.
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Actually if you are going to quote me to try to prove me wrong it may be worth quoting the whole quote rather than subjectively quoting to try to prove me wrong.

My actual quote:

EdBray said:
But he is shooting natural light. And anything you do to the controls WILL affect the ambient portion of the exposure.

The only thing that will not be affected by a change is the flash exposure if you change the shutter speed, anything else will affect that too. So yes, opening up the aperture from f16 to f10 will give you more flash light BUT unless you increase the shutter speed by the same proportion your background WILL be over exposed.

Now that may be fine if you are shooting at 1/60th at f16 as you could then shoot at 1/160th at f10 to give you the same background exposure whilst gaining some light from the flash, but the OP stated 1/200th at f16 so if you open up the aperture to f10 then you would need to compensate with the shutter speed to 1/500th sec to keep the backgound exposure correct and this would not give him a useable flash sync unless he is using a leaf shutter as high sync flash would lose him the power he is trying to gain from opening up the aperture.
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So what exactly is wrong with that?
 
Getting close, but more to do with differentiating between answers. :LOL:

I can see where I might have caused some confusion in the post above by spacing out the part of my post between the ambient part and the flash part when they really should have read concurrently as such:

EdBray said:
But he is shooting natural light. And anything you do to the controls WILL affect the ambient portion of the exposure, the only thing that will not be affected by a change in the shutter speed is the flash exposure, anything else will affect that too. So yes, opening up the aperture from f16 to f10 will give you more flash light BUT unless you increase the shutter speed by the same proportion your background WILL be over exposed.

Now that may be fine if you are shooting at 1/60th at f16 as you could then shoot at 1/160th at f10 to give you the same background exposure whilst gaining some light from the flash, but the OP stated 1/200th at f16 so if you open up the aperture to f10 then you would need to compensate with the shutter speed to 1/500th sec to keep the backgound exposure correct and this would not give him a useable flash sync unless he is using a leaf shutter as high sync flash would lose him the power he is trying to gain from opening up the aperture.
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Trying to break it up did make it read slighlty wrong if you read the statements as two seperate sentances and that is my fault for trying to respond too quickly, but this came later in the thread when I had already explained that Flash was wrong (and still is) :thumbsdown: and you decided to jump on the bandwagon to shoot me down.

Still I have only been doing this stuff for 30 years, I obviously must try harder :p
 
It seems to me that these arguments are down to misunderstandings rather than to a lack of understanding.

Both flash and ambient light are equally affected by the lens aperture
Outdoors, ambient light only is affected by the shutter speed (assuming of course that the shutter speed isn't too high to stop the flash synching)
Indoors, the ambient light is theoretically affected by the shutter speed but in practice it isn't, because there usually isn't enough ambient light to make any difference.

So, if you're shooting with flash outdoors and want the flash to be the dominant light source you need to use the highest shutter speed that will work with the flash. This will not affect the flash but will reduce the contribution made by the ambient light.

Or just use a powerful flash.
 
Garry Edwards said:
Both flash and ambient light are equally affected by the lens aperture
Outdoors, ambient light only is affected by the shutter speed (assuming of course that the shutter speed isn't too high to stop the flash synching)
Indoors, the ambient light is theoretically affected by the shutter speed but in practice it isn't, because there usually isn't enough ambient light to make any difference.
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I thought that was what I said but Tomas disagreed. #26
Sorry to jump in like this but I am interested in knowing if what I thought was right is incorrect.
 
Garry Edwards said:
It seems to me that these arguments are down to misunderstandings rather than to a lack of understanding.
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Nail. Head. Wallop!

Garry Edwards said:
....Or just use a powerful flash.
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:LOL: Hot shoe flashes are incredibly flexible and highly capable in many alternating circumstances.
I don't think anyone of this earth would argue this issue with the likes of Joe McNally, who readily chooses a hot shoe flash over his profoto's!

But there does come a time when more power is necessary, and this is when I'll be knocking at your door mate (when budget allows) (y) :D
 
Well I never - what a strange argument going on here

And there's me thinking this stuff is quite simple really :shrug:

So to throw my 2p into the mix...

Shutter & Aperture control ambient light (indoors or not), but shutter speed is irrelevant to the flash exposure providing it's slow enough for the flash to actually fire its full burst while the shutter is open, i.e. the sync speed or slower

The aperture is the controller of exposure for the flash, combined with the power output of the flash (which for off-camera work is usually on manual)

For shooting anywhere with ambient light you first decide how you wish to record the ambient light, and as AliB says it's common to slightly underexposure the ambient light so that when the flash correctly exposures the subject then they appear to 'pop' out of the background

As an example then...

Shooting outside might give you f16 at 1/250 & 100 ISO as 'correct' exposure. If you then want to underexpose it a bit as the background, then you might try f22 at that 1/250 & 100 ISO combination. So let's assume you're happy with that, so now you need to introduce the flash

On a bright day it's quite likely that even on full power a normal speedlight may struggle to give good coverage and output enough power to achieve correct exposure at f22 - unless it is close. Using a shoot-through brolly is likely to cause even more of a problem as a good deal of the flash's output is actually reflected back from the brolly. So using a reflective brolly (especially silver) or a softbox would be better as they both deliver more of the flash's output towards the subject

Often the simplest way to achieve correct exposure is simply to walk back & forth with the speedlight/brolly combo and check the screen on your camera

If you can't achieve that f22 needed in this example, it's simply that your flash isn't powerful enough; and a 'studio' flash with portable battery may be needed - but is a costly combo

What you really need in this example is for the f-stop to be lower, say f8, to make sure your flash is providing the necessary exposure - but there's a problem in simply opening up the aperture

The problem is that we've already stated the ambient light needed f16 at 1/250 & 100 ISO, so opening up the aperture to f8 for the flash will simply screw up the exposure for the ambient light. To correct to f8 you'd need the shutter to decrease to 1/1000 but then your flash won't sync so you've screwed up the flash exposure

Solution?

There are some instances when you simply can't balance the ambient & flash without a very powerful flash, so shooting on a duller day or when a cloud comes over may be necessary

Just out of interest - only the other day I was shooting outside with flash and my SB800 (shooting direct) was fine at delivering up to f16 to balance against the very bright background, but the easiest solution was actually to use a reflector instead!!!

HTH rather than adds to the argument :D

DD
 
Tomas Whitehouse said:
Nail. Head. Wallop!



:LOL: Hot shoe flashes are incredibly flexible and highly capable in many alternating circumstances.
I don't think anyone of this earth would argue this issue with the likes of Joe McNally, who readily chooses a hot shoe flash over his profoto's!

But there does come a time when more power is necessary, and this is when I'll be knocking at your door mate (when budget allows) (y) :D
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I'm not saying that any particular bit of kit it THE answer. Horses for courses, and the big advantage of hotshoe flashes (apart from cost and portability) is their very short flash duration.

And I agree that they are very versatile. But sometimes they just don't have enough power, and personally I choose to use a tool that does have enough power rather than the time-wasting alternative of PS.

But that's just me, it doesn't mean that I'm right or that other people are wrong.
 
Garry Edwards said:
I'm not saying that any particular bit of kit it THE answer. Horses for courses, and the big advantage of hotshoe flashes (apart from cost and portability) is their very short flash duration.

And I agree that they are very versatile. But sometimes they just don't have enough power, and personally I choose to use a tool that does have enough power rather than the time-wasting alternative of PS.

But that's just me, it doesn't mean that I'm right or that other people are wrong.
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That's the issue, you can't 'shop' bigger light in. Period.
That's why I will need to invest in 'the bigger lights from far away' capability as soon as the funds are there.
Things are on the up and opportunity knocks, big light that is portable is going to be a must soon.
 
Garry Edwards said:
Surely that's a good reason for using a powerful flash in the first place?



And that's another reason. Even the best hotshoe flashes only produce about 60 Joules, professional battery powered generators usually have 10x more.
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Yes would have loved to have used the Bowens but my back isn't up to carrying them around so in the end I had to make do with 2 Quantum qflashes.
 
Going back to the OP's question...

I think we've now worked out what effects ambient and flash by now, hopefully!

Haven't read every post, so might have been stated before. Picked a few tips from the Strobist DVD which I've found helpful....
If you have to use hotshoe flash to overpower daylight.....(i.e. don't have the option of 'nuking' the scene!)

1) Time of the day. Obviously trying to overpower the sun at noon on a summers day with a hotshoe flash is going to be impossible. But as the sun starts to go down when the light is a little less strong - it will be easier.

2) Distance. Flash to subject distance will allow shooting at smaller apertures, which is what's needed to kill ambient. i.e. need more light?, move the light source closer!

3) Get a second body that has a higher sync speed. Strobist site mentions what body's support high sync speeds.
 
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