joewoo wrote:
ok i can see how theres a problem with exposing so the highlights are not clipped... i guess i wanted to know more about the relation of the fill flashed face vs backlight highlights... at what point does this fill flashed face LOOK flashed.. to me, the fill flashed towel looks flashed... i thought maybe its because theres a 1:1 (through ettl) relationship of the flash exposed front vs the backside highlights... i was thinking if i expose so my highlights dont clip, and i fill flash -1 fec... then the subjects face would look backlit, yet, decently exposed... i dont want to blast the shadow side of the face and then create a photo that doesnt look back lit like it originally was... is it purely preference?
It might sound like a riddle but the answer to the your question of \"... at what point does this fill flashed face LOOK flashed?\" is: \"when it looks doesn\'t look as natural as fill from the sky\".
A unnatural look can be a result of a number of factors: intensity, the direction / angle of the light, whether the fill creates specular reflections / hot spots, etc. Unless the fill is raised on a bracket over the faces it will hit the face flat with no modeling and create hot spots, both which will make it look fake even if the intensity looks OK.
The point of the test was to see how the metering handled the backlit scene when the FEC was at 0. There\'s still a slight separation (more easily seen in the original between the sun lit parts of the towel and the slightly darker flashed fill, but I agree it looks a overfilled. But again it was from a baseline test of camera metering with a single flash and not an attempt to make it look perceptually correct.
What looks perceptually natural (i.e. as seen by eye in person) is highly subjective and influenced by the overall context of the scene. To make it more similar to what I saw by eye I\'d need dial back the FEC a bit to make the foreground darker.
The ideal scenario for flash fill is when the sunlight bouncing off the sky the person is facing supplies most of the fill and the flash just needs to lift it. The flash is less visible that way. B
In the \"good\" old days it required a good meter and a good deal of experience to predict what was needed to produce the desired outcome, and bets were hedged with lots and lots of bracketing. That\'s why in the good \'ol days photography was more or a real profession where tradecraft was what separated the pro from amateur. Automation and immediate feedback has shortened the learning curve and has narrowed the tradecraft gap in photography, devaluing the profession in the process, and leading some to the expectation that the camera will do everything right in every shot and if it doesn\'t its some how deficient.
I don\'t think the exposure process can never be totally automatic because the camera can\'t make subjective decisions on thing like what mood you want the lighting to evoke. So you just need to let the camera take its \"best shot\" then apply your technical knowledge and creative judgement.
Chuck
Mar 19, 2009 at 10:26 PM
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