p.3 #1 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
williamkazak wrote:
Bruce, why are you shooting outdoors at F1.4? What was the situation?
Sometimes explanations shouldn't be necessary, especially when the subject is a photograph. This HAS to be one of those times, surely?
I thought Bruce's example was spot-on.. Try doing that without flash and you would get a completely different result. Show those two different results to ten different people and you'll get ten different opinions of what looks right or which is 'correct'.
BTW. The 'Hide' button really works to increase the % of interesting conversation.
p.3 #2 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
williamkazak wrote:
Strongly disagree. You are blowing out the backgrounds. Mr Kris wrote:
Well, let me ask this: Why is the background important? I think along the same lines as before, this is a technical reason, totally ignoring aesthetic or image content.
No need to repeat, I guess. Mr Kris, you said my words for me. I feel that people these days get too hung up on sharp pixels and keeping safely within dynamic range. We as photographers should be mainly concerned with making visually striking images. Making technically correct images should be a second priority, not the main one.
dmacmillan wrote:
Well I don't know. It has a certain kitschy charm, kind of like watching "Plan 9 From Outer Space".
I've seen that movie, and I can't see the connection, sorry. What do you mean?
p.3 #3 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
DubiousDrewski wrote:
I've seen that movie, and I can't see the connection, sorry. What do you mean?
I was joshing with him about his hyperbolic "this mounted-on-camera fill flash thing has got to die!", intimating maybe really poorly executed camera mounted fill flash can have an attraction. Despite its lack of professional panache, I found "Plan 9 From Outer Space" possessing a certain charm. It's widely viewed as being "so bad it's good".
This didn't apply to the principle necessarily, just the atrocious execution of it. See my first post in this thread.
p.3 #4 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
@dmacmillan:
Ah, I see.
By the way Bruce. I like your image. I also love that you shot it wide angle - I can never get enough wide angle portraiture. I also feel that the fill flash really worked here - there are no ugly shadows and the lighting isn't flat. What I find amusing is how the ultra reflective street signs are betraying your technique and are glowing slightly.
p.3 #5 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
DubiousDrewski wrote:
I feel that people these days get too hung up on sharp pixels and keeping safely within dynamic range. We as photographers should be mainly concerned with making visually striking images. Making technically correct images should be a second priority, not the main one.
That depends on who's paying and what their expectations are - I think there needs to be a balance. Some images don't require to be visually striking, but they do require to be sharp, well exposed within the dynamic range of the camera and to cite a perfect example.. 'everybody's face needs to be seen, clothes and colours correct with no dark mergence of clothing and shadows' - pretty much like a standard wedding group shot, often at a distance greater than fill-flash will adequately cope with. Here, having a blown out background at a venue chosen for its ambience and possible views needs to accommodate these particular facets.
And fashion/catalogue work.. colours and contrast need to be correct, not sort of look OK.
As a style choice, blown out backgrounds can work with individual subjects with strong detail providing you have a decent performing lens and a quality sensor. If you get into the realms where flare caused by the surroundings deteriorates the subject then you may run the risk of providing images which look compromised rather than stylised.
Artistically, anything goes... but that can often be the justification for poor technique.
p.3 #6 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
ukphotographer wrote:
Artistically, anything goes... but that can often be the justification for poor technique.
Words that probably should be said more often than most people ever hear them ... or understand them.
IMO, emulates "command & control" ... if you have the ability to command and control it to achieve it, then it is probably good technique to achieve the artistry. However, if it is the best you can do and/or it is not consistently repeatable to achieve it ... then it is often times justification. Discerning the difference is something that bodes well for all of us.
p.3 #7 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
ukphotographer wrote:
to cite a perfect example.. 'everybody's face needs to be seen, clothes and colours correct with no dark mergence of clothing and shadows' - pretty much like a standard wedding group shot, often at a distance greater than fill-flash will adequately cope with. Here, having a blown out background at a venue chosen for its ambience and possible views needs to accommodate these particular facets.
And fashion/catalogue work.. colours and contrast need to be correct, not sort of look OK.
Well of course! I'm not advocating being messy or careless when capturing your subjects. I'm saying that IF you have to blow out your background a bit in order to properly expose for your subject, then let it happen. What's the harm? If the background was important for the image, then I'd capture it correctly. But in the case of my child photo, do we really need to see each blade of grass in the background perfectly exposed? What would that have added to the image?
p.3 #8 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
Personally, I'm not a fan of blown backgrounds. However, I have worked commercial shoots where blown backgrounds to obscure certain elements were essential to the project in regard to avoiding otherwise hefty licensing fees for showing the likeness of landmarks, private property, etc.
Still, I prefer to properly expose for the entire frame by way of modifiers, flags and scrims. Also, I never use the sun as a light source, so I'm at liberty (and somewhat obligated) to get my exposure balanced with all my artificial lighting toys, haha.
p.3 #9 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
DubiousDrewski wrote:
I'm saying that IF you have to blow out your background a bit in order to properly expose for your subject, then let it happen. What's the harm? If the background was important for the image, then I'd capture it correctly. But in the case of my child photo, do we really need to see each blade of grass in the background perfectly exposed? What would that have added to the image?
Perhaps your title should have instead been; 'Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It can look bad... sometimes' ?
I had another look at your child photo which is initially pleasing, and I don't think seeing every blade of grass is of any particular importance.
Whats the harm? Overexposing to suit the subject can be harmful. To me, the background looks too bright and you have lost what could have been a really beautiful rim light around the child which would have been far more evident when you saw the subject than in the way you portrayed it. You can see the start of this rim light almost working on the top of the child's head.. Some fill into the subject would have improved that along with alleviating the battle with obtaining a correct colour balance and saturation. The colour shift towards yellow to compensate for the shadows is inevitable, but with some sort of fill flash bringing the rim light in, making the background a little darker and providing a better colour to start with, I think you might have achieved better.
How much of this compensation for inadequate light is provided by RAW, Camera latitude, Colour correction, Saturation and Curve manipulation as a solution to just simply adding some light? What did the SOC look like - I'd guess not like the image posted? There are obviously differences in the results between overexposing and adding light... Is your rendition really the 'best' you could achieve in that situation?
p.3 #10 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
DubiousDrewski wrote:
@dmacmillan:
Ah, I see.
By the way Bruce. I like your image. I also love that you shot it wide angle - I can never get enough wide angle portraiture. I also feel that the fill flash really worked here - there are no ugly shadows and the lighting isn't flat. What I find amusing is how the ultra reflective street signs are betraying your technique and are glowing slightly.
Good catch i suppose a little dodging would fix that up.
p.3 #11 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
Mr Kris wrote:
Well, let me ask this: Why is the background important? I think along the same lines as before, this is a technical reason, totally ignoring aesthetic or image content. It's not enough to say that the background is blown out- more importantly, is why do you want it not to be blown out?
Many photographers go to considerable lengths to eliminate distracting backgrounds. We use fast lenses to do this, or use sharp lighting falloff.... or in this case, maybe the opposite of that. The background is not important in this image, so personally, I don't care that it's blown out.
Also, emotionally... think about actually looking into a sunset at a person. Do you see a fully detailed sky and the person at the same time? Or is it so bright, that you usually have to squint and put your hand up to block some glare?
p.3 #12 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
williamkazak wrote:
Bruce, why are you shooting outdoors at F1.4? What was the situation?
F1.4 to kill the background and to help the flash expose the subject. shooting dead into the sun with nothing more then the balloon to cut the sun down I needed f1.4 to get enough fill light on the subject to expose her properly and to send the background out of focus. I like my fast primes.
p.3 #13 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
DubiousDrewski wrote:
Well of course! I'm not advocating being messy or careless when capturing your subjects. I'm saying that IF you have to blow out your background a bit in order to properly expose for your subject, then let it happen. What's the harm? If the background was important for the image, then I'd capture it correctly. But in the case of my child photo, do we really need to see each blade of grass in the background perfectly exposed? What would that have added to the image?
If you put the background out of focus, it has the same effect of separation without competing for attention with your subject. Not blowing out the background doesn't mean that everything behind the subject will be in focus.
p.3 #14 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
alohadave wrote:
If you put the background out of focus, it has the same effect of separation without competing for attention with your subject. Not blowing out the background doesn't mean that everything behind the subject will be in focus.
Easier said than done when using conventional flash in the foreground. Exposing so as not to blow the sunny background / backlighting has a domino effect causing dark shaded foreground, which in turn requires adding flash to lift dark foreground, which them imposes the shutter sync limit, requiring narrower apertures and more DOF than may be desired creatively. That's the problem HHS was invented to address, but it is range limited.
p.3 #15 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
cgardner wrote:
Easier said than done when using conventional flash in the foreground. Exposing so as not to blow the sunny background / backlighting has a domino effect causing dark shaded foreground, which in turn requires adding flash to lift dark foreground, which them imposes the shutter sync limit, requiring narrower apertures and more DOF than may be desired creatively. That's the problem HHS was invented to address, but it is range limited.
??
It's as easy to do as it is to say... My conventional flash copes amicably with no loss of range. It doesn't have a button to press to make it work, and that button certainly doesn't have 'HHS' labelled on it.
Taking 'magic' out of the equation there's always ND filters. Set your ratio, slap on the ND. I prefer magic.
p.3 #16 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
Hmmm, I'm trying to remember ... camera @ ISO 50, set flash to ISO 125, set flash to auto ... set camera to expose for background.
Nope, that can't be right, too easy ... or at least that's what my memory of circa 1980's on a Nikon FE with a cheap Focal flash tells me (shooting Fujichrome with no PP).
p.3 #17 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
What I don't understand is how blowing the background is any different from the concept of shooting high key blown-white backdrop glamour that you see people use. I'm simply advocating using that studio blown-white look out in the real world sometimes. To me, it's a beautiful style and I just cannot understand this dislike for it.
ukphotographer wrote:
Perhaps your title should have instead been; 'Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It can look bad... sometimes' ?
Well that wasn't my opinion at the time of writing the OP. It was only after some discussion that I reformed my position on the matter.
ukphotographer wrote:
To me, the background looks too bright and you have lost what could have been a really beautiful rim light around the child
I'll agree on that. But you must understand that this was a grab shot. One moment after this photo, the boy hands the baby chicken off, stands up and walks away. I wouldn't have had time to set my flash settings for this one anyway. I can see your point about the rim light though, so out of curiosity, I dug out my old external drive, found that old DNG file and reworked it. Now be aware that this photo is from a K10 - not exactly strong in the dynamic range department. This is what I could get out of it.
p.3 #18 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
Here are two examples. The first one is shot with a 70-200 at f 2.8 with on camera flash. I set this shot up knowing that the sun was low and left of me. The flash was used to fill in the shadows just a bit. The second shot is with a an 85 f1.4 at 1.4 no flash was used. The sun was low and directly behind the boy. The key to both of these is balancing the exposure so that the background matches the foreground exposure. What made the second work was the large white wall directly behind me. With out the fill this photo would not work.
p.3 #19 · Fill Flash for Outdoors. Why? It looks bad.
cgardner wrote:
*SNIP*
Just viewing the examples you post alone should teach people not to listen to a word you say, but unfortunately you still plug away all your canned responses.... you talk a good game, but your just that... all talk... you don't have the skill to back up anything you preach, and the majority of the time what you preach will ultimately result in a piss poor photo.
Beautiful photo, and great work with the flash .. did you use ETTL or manual, and what was your thinking behind making any adjustments?
It does not look at all like fill flash was used, which is about the greatest compliment I can give a photo using flash. Also can you post the color version? Just curious if the B&W hides some of the flashes usual color balance inaccuracies.
