Question about silhouetting

[hennebury22]

I'm curious to know how to do it, I have tried some but they havent turned out.

[crazyskillz07]

I believe you need light coming directly towards you rather than from behind you or from the side. Then you would adjust you exposure until the subject you are trying to make a silhouette of is dark. I think....

[crazyskillz07]

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Here is one I took last week. Strait from the camera. No editing.

[hennebury22]

I use natural light, and the only other light source I have are desk lamps

[crazyskillz07]

I use natural light, and the only other light source I have are desk lamps

The light source I was using in the picture above is the sun (natural light). To silhouette you must have your subject between you and the sun. There may be other ways to do it but I only know of this one.

[hennebury22]

The light source I was using in the picture above is the sun (natural light). To silhouette you must have your subject between you and the sun. There may be other ways to do it but I only know of this one.

Yeah, I get that. It was more of doing it when it's not sunset or sunrise.

[Stocky]

I don't remember where I read about it, but if you have a subject with out much light on it, and then expose for the background then it should work out well. I created the following image in my room of a carving of a bear with a candle behind it. It doesn't take much light to make it work, you just need to make sure that all of the light is behind your subject.
This can be done easily in Manual mode, or by using the AE lock * button with out the foreground in the way.
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[hennebury22]

okay, thanks.

[DAMphyne]

Take an exposure reading of the background, then overexpose.
Bracket the exposures to find the right amount of silhouette.
Try not to have, on the subject, any light brighter than the background.

[PhotosGuy]

Take an exposure reading of the background, then overexpose. I don't think you mean that? I agree with bracketing, but I'd start with the background exposure.

[DAMphyne]

I guess I did word that incorrectly, by exposing for the background, you should be underexposing the foreground.
My mistake.