Fill flash newbie

[mckinleypics]

Hi folks,

I've been asked to take some outdoor portraits of my friend's daughter. We will probably be shooting these on Sunday at 1:00pm - maybe not optimal sun but that's when our schedules align - tell me if we should pick a different time.

Onto the topic question - I've never played around with fill flash outdoors. I have a 7D and a 580EXII and I know how to set it up to fire remotely using the camera. I was thinking about having her mom hold the flash at different angles for me while I take the pictures.

Any advice on flash settings, etc.? What should I know so I don't waste everyone's time?

I'm not getting paid and expectations are low. This isn't for a yearbook or anything - just memories to have around before she's off to college.

Thanks in advance!

[Big K]

One 580 at mid day can be a challenge but you can still get some decent shots.

My suggestions, set up so the sun is directly at her back. It will be high enough in the sky it should not cause you much problems with flare and will make for a nice hair light and will leave her face/front basically in total shadow.

Set your exposure for the background to your taste then set your flash to give you a proper exposure on your subject.

I find with a single light, especially a speedlight outdoors, it is better to shoot with the flash not too far off either side of the camera. Any shadows you get will end up being very pronounced because of the combination of hard light from a direct speedlight and seriously stepped down apertures required to deal with the bright ambient conditions. You can deal with this with HSS but that is a whole other can of worms so unless you have lots of time to play around, would suggest not trying this initially.

Another thing that will help is to either shoot waist up shots or have her sit on the ground so the distance top to bottom of the subject is as minimal as possible. This will allow you to not get too much falloff from head to toe trying to light her whole body with a single speedlight that is going to need to be relatively close to her in order to have enough power to be effective.

If you have her sit on the ground, then sit on the ground as well and have her mom stand directly behind you and hold the flash about head high for her (mom) and aim the flash at the subject then try some shots with her moving left and right a couple of feet with the flash.

I am guessing you will end up needing to have the flash power at full or 1/2 to get enough power and if you have the time, experiment with different zoom settings on the flash. The more zoom you can get by with, the less strain you will put on the flash to maximize your light.

If you can't find a good setup where you can have the sun at her back, look for opportunities to have her be in the shade and do basically the same thing as above.

Below is a link with some images to give you an idea what I mean. Image 8 is an example of the first section with the sun at her back and image 4 is an example of finding some shade to have her sit it. Trunks of big trees can do wonders. These are only examples of positioning. They are not a fair comparison of expectations from a single speedlight since they were shot with a pretty high powered studio strobe and an umbrella.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=857540

Hope that helps give you some starting points.

[mckinleypics]

Perfect! Thank you so much for taking the time to write this!!