Natural vs. Artificial Light - your examples and explanations

Ok guys here we go - a few of my outdoor portraits with a explanation/justificat​ion of the lighting in each. Feel free to add your own.

As I mentioned in the other thread, I estimate that I use strobes on outdoor shoots about 20% of the time. So I'll start with an example of that.

1. Here I have Lauren (a senior a few years ago) in the doorway of an old train car at about 10 in the morning. Obviously the ambient light did not look like this; the lighting here is the result of my Einstein in a large white PLM. There's still a hint of natural light (the rear of the train is lit by the sun) but for the most part, this is all "me." (and her mom holding onto my PLM for dear life in the wind)

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Thanks for getting this going Joe. Great examples and explanations too.

I was digging around looking for a natural light and artificial light at the same location and I finally found some. I always take the shot without flash then get an idea of how much I want to light my subject and darken the background. This is pushing a bit on darkening the background for any kind of natural feel but a few pictures later I backed off a bit. I do like drama. I was trying to explain how I ended up there but really when there is good natural light use it and back to flash when it is gone. Also these pictures are an example of things not being perfect on purpose. I have some that start out better but I think showing what is not so good has a purpose too.


1st no flash
sooc

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Good thread. As David mentioned, if all possible, it's best to exhibit before (sooc) & after (edited) shots of natural lighting, same goes for ambient and then strobe fill in shots.

I'd guess my ratio is about 60/40 (natural/strobe) when I do outdoor portraits. I'll see if I can dig some up later tonight.

Very nice shots Charro...

mellofelow wrote in post #15131196
Good thread. As David mentioned, if all possible, it's best to exhibit before (sooc) & after (edited) shots of natural lighting, same goes for ambient and then strobe fill in shots.

I'd guess my ratio is about 60/40 (natural/strobe) when I do outdoor portraits. I'll see if I can dig some up later tonight.

Very nice shots Charro...

I started to do that, I just didn't think it would be fair because exposures and or WB were far off. I did fix them to sooc but it is more work to do it that way so I am liable not to in the future plus I just like looking at finished pictures more.

I didnt read it all, but I should, all I can say is nice portraits. Makes me want to buy an 85LII now

Here is one with plenty of light, close to full power and a 22"BD
It was mid day the clouds were not everywhere I wanted them to be but they were nice to have in the picture even if they didn't help much with the strong sun. It takes a lot of power to blue the sky mid day from 15+ feet away.

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Nice stuff, keep it coming; the explainations and images are all great. I will post something up of mine in a bit.

Ok, so here is my first contribution to the thread.

I have mostly just been shooting my family for the past couple of months, so I'm going to lead off with a couple shots of my daughter. The background behind the shots is that we just took a walk to the park and I decided to bring my camera along as I often do. She wasn't too mobile at the time of the shoot, so I could pretty much put her wherever I wanted. The sun was going down behind the trees, so about half the park was in shade. I knew I didn't want to shoot in direct sun, so I ended up putting her in shade for one of the shots and in and the dappled light of a setting sun poking through the trees for the other shot. It's worth noting that even when your in shade, more often than not there is also some sort of directional light present in the form of reflected light from the surroundings which are in direct sun. A lot of times, as in the case of these two images, this directional light comes from of the reflection of the suns light off of a blue sky. Were it not for the tree cover above and behind in these shots, the reflection of the suns light off of the sky would be coming in from the front, back, both sides, and above and would have made for much flatter images. Main reason I decided to use natural light here was that it wasn't practical to set up strobes and it also would have spoiled our little trip to the park.

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Here are a couple natural/artificial light examples, I think I've posted these in another thread or two, but they're certainly applicable here. These were both with one Einstein E640.

This was mid afternoon, with intermittent cloud cover. Not a spectacular sky, but dynamic enough for me to want to include in the shot without having it blown out like in the 1st picture. I set the power somewhere in the middle, used a medium soft box, and placed maybe 8 or so feet away from them, camera left.

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A bit of clarification about light reflecting off the "blue sky";
The atmosphere is about 120K feet thick. More than half the atmospheric density is below 10K feet.
Sunlight reflects off of particles in the atmosphere other than the nitrogen and oxygen that make up the bulk of a particulate free atmosphere.
The reason that the period about one hour before sunset and one hour after sun rise is so attractive is that the light from the sun is having to traverse, at an oblique angle a great deal more atmosphere than it does as it gets higher in the sky. What makes for the rosy sunsets we all love to photograph are high concentrations of dust particles in the air. Water vapor also has an impact although its the dust that tends to attract the water that causes the color.

The particles in the atmosphere (pollution is you must) diffuses the sun light not a blue sky. Ironically, the less blue the sky, the more diffusion. Primarily because its the same particles in the atmosphere that diffuse the light, that make the sky look white and "foggy" rather than blue.

dmward wrote in post #15132481
A bit of clarification about light reflecting off the "blue sky";
The atmosphere is about 120K feet thick. More than half the atmospheric density is below 10K feet.
Sunlight reflects off of particles in the atmosphere other than the nitrogen and oxygen that make up the bulk of a particulate free atmosphere.
The reason that the period about one hour before sunset and one hour after sun rise is so attractive is that the light from the sun is having to traverse, at an oblique angle a great deal more atmosphere than it does as it gets higher in the sky. What makes for the rosy sunsets we all love to photograph are high concentrations of dust particles in the air. Water vapor also has an impact although its the dust that tends to attract the water that causes the color.

The particles in the atmosphere (pollution is you must) diffuses the sun light not a blue sky. Ironically, the less blue the sky, the more diffusion. Primarily because its the same particles in the atmosphere that diffuse the light, that make the sky look white and "foggy" rather than blue.

That's fricking awesome! Thanks for clearing that up and providing a better and more accurate explaination than I could ever have.

Thanks for reading my post too.

Both have their own advantages. In general if possible the use of strobe really helps the image to have more of a pop to it and bring the viewer in on the subject.

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Thanks for the contribution Zerimar.

I personally think that the two images you shot with only ambient light (the first and fifth) look the best out of the selections you posted.

While it is obvious you took the ambient light into consideration and contemplated the size, location, and intensity of the strobes, I can't help but feel that the strobes are a bit too intense on all of the combined shots except for the last.

Overall great images and great reasons for making the choices you made. Thanks Again for contributing.

^^^High key is Zerimar's style just an fyi.

Rittrato wrote in post #15132583
^^^High key is Zerimar's style just an fyi.

Thats great; another reason as to why he chose his settings. I prefer things in the low end of the histogram thus my response. Thanks for putting things into perspective.