When I started here at 365, I knew little about light and less about controlling it.
There are times you see a perfect location, but when you go to shoot, the light becomes a problem. It can be too bright; too dark; or in this case it was dappled like an old pony. Blotches of bright and dark light.
There were two of us taking photos at yesterday's family Easter gathering (this is why in the first photo there is no camera awareness). In the photo of Mommy and baby, you can see how the light interferes with getting a great photo. One option would be to turn them away from the light and use a diffused flash to fill light the subjects.
For the baby, we set her up on the ground in the same direction the mother and baby are facing. This worked out best because the ground was sloped up. Turning her away from the light would have had her going down hill, which would have made it physically difficult on the baby.
In this direction, we still had the dappled light, so we had an adult stand in the path of the light to block it from her face. Another option would have been to pull a sheet from the car and have two adults hold it to even out the light and get rid of the dappled light.
With using an adult as a light blocker, I could easily move them around to get exactly the coverage I wanted. In this case, I kept the dappled light in the background, but got nice even light on the baby's face.
We keep a quilt and a sheet in the car just for these kind of lighting issues and to use as ground cover when shooting little ones.
Dappled Light:
Shaded Light with dappled background:
Hope others will share any light problems and fixes here! The best part of 365 for me has been learning from others!!
This seems to be an in camera processing which pushes light into shadows and reduces contrast when you have these conditions. This is similar to processing you can do in Lightroom and Photoshop. Nice feature for when you can't control the light!
That's where post shoot editors come in. Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw from Photoshop can solve almost any problem, especially if you are shooting RAW and make sure that you don't blow the highlights.
@paulty@swguevin I shoot with Nikon (3100, 5100, 7100 and the 610) and I would never resort to Active D Lighting (ADL). I find it a little ham-fisted. Even if I shoot jpegs, I would much rather edit my own tones and gamuts than rely on ADL with its rather coarse grained parameter choices.. It doesn't suit all images and should be turned off for "ordinary" lighting conditions. Nikon even strongly recommend judicious use, although I didn't scan the referenced link to see if the caution was there. An ancillary problem is that if you turn it on, I bet you'll sometime forget then to turn it off when finished for the session, and then wonder why "ordinary" shots the next day look pale and washed out.
I carry a 5 in 1 reflector disk with me if I'm going to be shooting outdoor portraits. In this situation I would take off the reflector skins and use it as a diffuser.
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http://www.nikonusa.com/en/Learn-And-Explore/Article/fsqd6p6h/active-d-lighting.html
This seems to be an in camera processing which pushes light into shadows and reduces contrast when you have these conditions. This is similar to processing you can do in Lightroom and Photoshop. Nice feature for when you can't control the light!
@paulty @swguevin I shoot with Nikon (3100, 5100, 7100 and the 610) and I would never resort to Active D Lighting (ADL). I find it a little ham-fisted. Even if I shoot jpegs, I would much rather edit my own tones and gamuts than rely on ADL with its rather coarse grained parameter choices.. It doesn't suit all images and should be turned off for "ordinary" lighting conditions. Nikon even strongly recommend judicious use, although I didn't scan the referenced link to see if the caution was there. An ancillary problem is that if you turn it on, I bet you'll sometime forget then to turn it off when finished for the session, and then wonder why "ordinary" shots the next day look pale and washed out.
Same as Franck @frankhymus. I almost never use the in-camera D-lighting function, but I shoot in RAW and I can always correct afterwards if necessary.