lighting

[swight]

I try and usual natural light as much as possible, but lately I've had a hard time finding the right light. I use open shade on bright sunny days, but it seems like the open shade is too dark. It's light enough to use a fast shutter speed, but the colour of the photos are off, they're not bright etc. Will taking them in RAW help, or am I just using the wrong shaded areas? What do you do on bright sunny days? Use reflectors or diffusers? Any help would be appreciated!

[blue_max]

Try using fill flash with a 430ex or 580ex. It will work wonders.

Graham

[Mark_Cohran]

Fill flash is a good suggestion, but make sure you're in AV or TV mode to get it to act as fill. I also dial in about -1 stop of Flash Compensation as I think Canon's algorithm for fill flash is a bit too strong for my taste.

Also, there's a difference between shade and open shade. In open shade the subject is in shade but there's still plenty of open sky above the subject with some reflection into the shade. In full shade, like underneath a forest canopy, it will be too dark and it will be a lot like shooting indoors.

Also, open shade will be a cooler light, so you might want to do a custom white balance or at least use the cloudy setting and not AWB. Of course, if you shoot RAW you can adjust the white balance as you convert the photos for processing.

Mark

[swight]

Thanks for your suggestions. I can use my 580ex indoors no problem, but haven't seem to mast using it as fill, as I too think it's usually too strong. I guess I'll have to get the manual back out and figure it out.

[DocFrankenstein]

You have to watch where the light in the shadows comes from. It it's reflecting off the grass, it's gonna be green... of a brick wall is going to be red...

So I guess a custom white balance would help.

I don't like fill flash because it makes the subject look flat. A reflector is better and a bit more natural.