2 light sources, one sun, one strobe

Just a note about evening light and fill flash.  Sunsets can produce nice warm lighting; but can also produce long harsh shadows.  This evening I took this one without a flash in my front yard... forgive the subject matter, it's not the most aesthetic.

I am shooting at ISO 100, f4.0 and 1/320 at 38mm.

For the record, I metered at around /125 and then stopped it down faster a few stops so that I wouldn't have the sun blowing out (too bright) on the back of the subject.  Plus, I knew I would be adding a flash to fill in the underexposed areas.  This is a nice trick, because then the background is also a bit underexposed and doesn't get all the attention it would if it too bright.  So, I add a flash to the right.  While the sun is coming in camera left, the flash was placed directly opposite.  No umbrella, just straight flash.  I put it on manual and stopped it to 1/16 power.  Here's the difference..

I could have used a reflector, but then there is the element of not knowing how much light is really reflecting.  The flash allows me to control that power.   Although the flash is cooler light than the reflector would be.
I zoomed in a bit to 55mm and found a bee for the final shot.

Notice the lighting from the right still fills in some of the shadows that would otherwise be a bit too dark for my liking.

Pick of the Day









I have added this photographers blog to my reader for some inspiration on lighting examples of weddings. He's got some good stuff. I would be interested what the source of light was for the front of this subject. Definitely the sun is behind her, but is it a flash or a bounce reflector in front??? Very possibly, there was someone holding a reflector down in the lower right, but he may have added this dark feature in photoshop to cover that person. We may never know.