photojunkie

Got this email from my friend Dan who was recently at the SXSW Music festival down in Austin. He came home with the following questions for me.

1) How can I best deal with backlit subjects? Either the background is exposed properly and the subject is underexposed, or the subject is properly exposed and the background is way bright. Any way to fix this, or use it to my advantage?

Because the dynamic range between the brightest thing in the frame and the darkest thing in the frame is so large, your camera won’t be able to capture all the variations of light. So you end up with darks that are too dark or lights that are blown out. If your subject is backlit and your want their face to be exposed properly, you will need to add another light source such as a flash. The flash will act as a filler to reveal more details in the foreground despite the bright background. This is your best bet to remedy this situation.

However, there are creative things you can do with backlight. If you place your subject directly between the light source and yourself, you can create some interesting halos around your subject highlighting their silhouette.

In this photo of Fefe Dobson, I used the backlight creatively to be a part of the composition. Luckily, the spotlights up front were bright enough that I didn’t need to use a flash.

2) At many shows the stage is flooded with red light. Often times this confuses my light meter, and the shot ends up looking splotchy. Any way to avoid this? I also saw a few people using external light meters. I’m sure this stuff is way over my head, but I’m still curious: what’s the advantage of using an external meter, as opposed to just using the one in the camera?

Basically, the meter in your camera is overcompensating the exposure and averaging it to what the camera believes is grey. In darker situations such at a concert, you will need to stop down your exposure. This will require you to basically under expose your image slightly from the in camera meter.

The basic way a meter works is that it will give your the correct exposure for 18% grey. This is fine for most situations but is not ideal when you have a frame that is predominantly black or white. The problem with in-camera meters is that it will average out the exposure in the frame to get you to that 18% grey ideal. At a concert you will have a frame with is mostly black, with a shot of light on your subject. The meter in your camera thus averages out the black to grey and inadvertently over exposes your subject. The opposite is true when shooting snow, the white in the snow often tricks the camera into thinking the scene is overexposed, thus averaging the scene to a point where every thing is underexposed.

In this photo of Aqueduct, there is obvious overexposure. A way to fix this after the fact is to turn down the exposure when processing in photoshop. It is moments like these, where shooting Raw definitely comes in handy.

The advantage of a light meter is that you can judge the light in various parts of a environment to get a sense of the light in that room. Unfortunately, in a concert situation, one can’t hop on stage and take a bunch of readings. This is where having a spot meter can come in handy. with a spot meter, you check the exposure on various objects in a scene. It is best to take note of the darkest area and the lightest areas. In most Digital SLR’s the dynamic range vary, giving you anywhere between 6 and 10 stops. This means that your camera will capture the lights and darks within a 6 to 10 stop range (depending on your camera and ISO). Anything above or below that range will either be totally white or totally black.

Rule of thumb, if your frame is predominently black, your will want to underexpose your image in comparision to your in-camera meter. If your frame is predominently white you will want to over expose your image in comparison to your in-camera meter. You can do this one of two ways, set the exposure manually, or dial up or down the exposure on the exposure scale on your camera.

3) I saw lots of people using flash diffusers on their external flashes. What do they do? Are there different kinds? Any recommendations?

In this photo of Hal Sparks, I used a flash bounce upwards to light up the scene. The bar was really dark and this was a last resort.

Often, a direct flash can be too bright and can overexpose an image, especially in dark situations. Diffusers soften the light to give it more of a natural feel. There are expensive and cheap ways to do this. If the cieling is low enough you can bounce your flash of the ceiling. You can create your own diffuser, still bouncing the light upward and having a white cardboard attached to your flash unit. The other option is to by a diffuser such as an omnibouce (which I have) or a lightsphere (does someone want to buy my one of these? size P1 please).

That being said, if shooting at a concert situation, use flash with caution. You don’t want to be the annoying guy who blinds half the audience with his flashes all night.