Baby pictures like this, taken just now, are nice, no?

Typical available light, right?

That’s what you might think. But no. Well, yes, but both flash and available. Bounced flash at +2 stops flash exposure compensation, while 800 ISO, f/1.4, 1/20th second also gave +1 on the meter. Without the flash, it would have been too dark on the non-lit side.

Back to my shoot!

…but enough sun to shoot outdoors. So here was the outside today, in an Ontario that is still devoid of leaves:

Exposed for the background, that is 100 ISO, 1/250 sec, f/7.1.

Uh uh: obviously that does not work. What is the solution?

There are at least two solutions I could choose.

First I could brighten it all. There are many photographers who only do this and it is not a bad solution. It leads to images like:

That is not bad, but what if I wanted to see the background darker? I like to make my subjects the bright pixels. Bright pixels is where it’s crisp and clear.

So the other solution, and you knew it: use a flash. If I shoot into an umbrella, I can get the flash close enough at half power to achieve this:

And that is how I do it.

Notes for this: I used an umbrella to shoot into. Using pocketwizards, I fired a 580EX flash at half to full power (I usually avoid going over half). I used a sandbag on the light stand, but even then it can blow over.

Later, I had to go direct. In this field:

100 ISO, 1/250 sec, f/8.

Why did I go direct? Because in an open field, an umbrella would be blown over even with a sandbag on the light stand. Sometimes it is that simple!

And as said here before: direct, unmodified flash is fine, as long as it is nowhere near the camera!

If you look at the ARTICLES above, you will see one about “exposing to the right”. Read it. And perhaps remember this as a “take-home” outcome:

Provided you do not actually overexpose any of the channels (Red, Green Blue), you can always reduce brightness in all or part of the image in “post”, and as a result of doing this increase the quality compared to shooting it darker in the first place.

That is why we expose to the right. I am not advocating doing this all the time, mind you: it would mean post-production work all the time, and we are photographers, not graphic artists. But sometimes you simply do not have the time to put up lights.

Like here:

When I shot that, I knew I would want the ambient light darker. But that would have meant getting out the softbox, boom, pocketwizards, and so on; and that simply was not practical at the time. So I shot like in the pic above, knowing that I could reduce—not increase— exposure in part of the image later by way of masking or vignetting.

With a little work, and I mean a little (perhaps a minute or two), that gives me something like this as an end result:

Now again, of course it is much better to actually shoot this way. But when you do not have a choicer, expose as highly as you can without overexposing either of the three primary channels; then, reduce locally later to taste.