Contrast Problem

[poolstok]

OK, I hope anybody can help me here….

I find it quite difficult photographing portraits of people with a real dark skin wearing white (like a corporate portrait shot or wedding). It never seems that I can get a decent exposure with one shot, but have to photoshop 2 images (one correctly exposed for the white garment and one correctly exposded for the face) together to get the correct effect.

I am using a 350D with a 420EX TTL flash with metering mode set to Evaluative Metering.

Unfortunately the shoot is done, and I can not quickly test the other metering modes to see if they will work better…

Does anybody have some tips as to how to obtain better contrast balance?

Thanx

Later

Johan

[jrsforums]

This might help: http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=46778&highlight=

Though Scott used multiple flashes, you might get some tips from what he did.

John

[René Damkot]

I'ld try to keep the light as soft as possible. The harder the light, the higher the contrast, so the more problems. If you shoot raw there shouldn't be to much of a problem 'blending' two exposures together; just 'develop' each image twice: once for the clothing, and once for the face....

[chtgrubbs]

White shirts are always a pain to reproduce properly. Just slightly too light and they blow out, just slightly too dark and they look dirty and dingy. Use very soft light ( I like a 3x4 softbox for head and shoulders portraits) and keep the light ratio at about 1/2 stop difference between main and fill and you should be able to bridge the contrast without much post processing.

[poolstok]

Thanx for all the feedback people! Problem is, I have a corporate function next week, and there is bound to be lots of white people in tuxedos (in which case the suit can fade out IMO) and black people in white shirts..... except for ceiling bounce (if it allows), what else can I do with my caera and / flash to get optimal shots while moving around a crowd?

Thanx

Johan

[René Damkot]

You could of course set the contrast parameter to low when shooting jpg... Might help, but test first!

[poolstok]

Interesting - I did not think of that....... Now why did I not think of that?

Stupid Johan!:rolleyes:

Thanx!

johan

[robertwgross]

The white dress -- black tuxedo problem always haunts wedding photographers, so that is a similar problem. I would never think of shooting JPEG for a wedding. However, in the RAW converter, you can convert it with low contrast or high or whatever you want. That would be a much safer method than shooting and storing it one way in the camera, and then that one way might turn out to be sub-optimal.

---Bob Gross---

[pfogle]

Definitely shoot RAW - then you've got a fall-back in case it goes pear shaped - and with that sort of contrast at least some of your exposures will be off. And set the parameter to the lowest setting you can (far left) and check the histogram - that will give the most accurate reading you can get.
Phil