Ok, so I am having problems with shooting a portrait with the sun low in the horizon, directly behind the subject. I am metering off their face to expose the face correctly and of course expect the background to be totally blown out. I am using 5d mkii w/ 70-200 2.8 lens w/ hood. The problem I'm getting is that the subject has a glare / white haze over them. They are not clear and defined. One of my friends had the same set-up and settings except w/ nikon gear, but he didn't have the same problem. Now I can go into lightroom and use the blacks and clarity sliders, but I would like to get the results strait out of camera (or at least closer). I also thought it could be my filter. So I took it off, but had the same results. Any suggestions or ideas would be helpful. This is kind of driving me crazy right now.
Just so you know my settings were: f2.8 1/500 iso 200.
Thanks,
Brian
BrianHamilton wrote:
One of my friends had the same set-up and settings except w/ nikon gear, but he didn't have the same problem. Now I can go into lightroom and use the blacks and clarity sliders, but I would like to get the results strait out of camera (or at least closer). I
Thanks,
Brian
Then shoot jpeg and do all of your settings in camera instead of post.
You can get flare but less haze if your lens is shaded or you are shooting at an angle to the sun, use a hat or paper, whatever to shield the front of your lens or stand in the shade.
yes, he PP's them, but less than you think. I still, want a picture, know I can help, and await your email. Even so, a quick example of something you could change:
try doing this shot with OM 28mm 2.8 and you can't get decent FG exposure with sun flare, it just lowers contrast heavily. if you do the same with Canon 28 1.8 or canon 24 1.4, you get decent flare effects, without loss of contrast (better exposure
Brian I think if you meter for the ambient light in the background then fill flash to expose the face you will get better results. I need F16 and above and sometimes above 250SS to do this. My 1D sure helps when I am trying to overpower the sun and you really do not need that much flash power to do so. Seems to me that wide open A would need a really high SS to achieve what you want which would then be to high of a ss to sync at..
I will upload a pic later today, but it sounds like the light overflow idea. It's just wired because I have seen the shot I want, I just haven't gotten it yet. Even if the sun isn't direcly behind the subject I seem to get light overflow. I really don't want to use fill flash because I'm going for a different look. More high key with a properly exposed subject. Even a little flare would be fine, as long as it didn't effect the subject exposure to much.
Lens flare. Solar Flare. Understand when I use the term solar flare I am referring to what the sensor accepts, not the actual phenomenom, yet it is the equivalent.
Shade the lens opening with anything. And bracket. But most importantly do not allow the shot to dictate what is the most powerful fill flash in the galaxy. Nothing withstands solar flares, which is what occurs to any sensor whenever the sun enters directly into your lens.
Solar Flare Solar flares are tremendous explosions on the surface of the Sun. In a matter of just a few minutes they heat material to many millions of degrees and release as much energy as a billion megatons of TNT.
I agree with the front focus point. It was difficult to focus with that much light. I should probably shoot at f4 or 5.6 due to subject, photographer movement. For this shot there's really no need to shoot at 2.8. I just like shooting at 2.8.
