Outdoor portraits with a 580ex and nothing else...

[Laramie]

My buddy and his family are real low on money so I offered to do portraits for them for Christmas cards and such. I'm more of a landscape guy so don't really have a whole lot of experience working with my flash exclusively for portraits.

How do I diffuse the light during the day so not to get shadows and reduce red eye? Should I still use a bounce card even though it's outside and the up pointing flash has nothing to bounce off of?

Any other tips or pointers would be great.

[Emberghost]

The best advice I could give is place them somewhere that has nice natural light already. Find something not in direct sunlight and avoid random shadows and such. For example a courtyard that had a large overhang, so it is outside and well lit but still all in the shade. Just my .02

[Curtis N]

You don't need to worry about redeye outdoors. It's only a problem indoors when people's pupils are dilated in the low light.

Don't bother with diffusing the flash, either. Direct flash works fine outdoors.

Start in P mode with both EC and FEC set at 0 and go from there. Chimp a little and use EC to adjust background exposure and FEC to adjust subject exposure.

Canon's E-TTL flash metering system generally works great for fill. It's usually not too hard to make nice-looking portraits outdoors, as long as you keep your subjects out of direct sun.

[Laramie]

Originally Posted by Curtis N

You don't need to worry about redeye outdoors. It's only a problem indoors when people's pupils are dilated in the low light.

Don't bother with diffusing the flash, either. Direct flash works fine outdoors.

Start in P mode with both EC and FEC set at 0 and go from there. Chimp a little and use EC to adjust background exposure and FEC to adjust subject exposure.

Canon's E-TTL flash metering system generally works great for fill. It's usually not too hard to make nice-looking portraits outdoors, as long as you keep your subjects out of direct sun.

Great thanks. So do I need to go back to Photo 101 for "P" mode? I only ever use "Av" or "M", I don't reckon i've ever used "P". Can I get the info about P mode from my manual or

[Laramie]

Originally Posted by Emberghost

The best advice I could give is place them somewhere that has nice natural light already. Find something not in direct sunlight and avoid random shadows and such. For example a courtyard that had a large overhang, so it is outside and well lit but still all in the shade. Just my .02

The place I have in mind is a Winery & Vineyard so there will be a mix of shade and direct sun shots, but it will be afternoon so hopefully light won't be harsh.

[Curtis N]

I know what you're thinking. P mode? I'm way beyond P mode!

But here's the thing. You need to keep your shutter speed at 1/250 or slower with flash.
And chances are, if you have plenty of light, 1/250 is where you want it to minimize motion blur and keep the aperture in a reasonable range. And chances are, that's exactly what P mode will give you with flash outdoors.

Sure, you could use Tv mode at 1/250. You could use Av mode and make sure your shutter speed stays at 1/250 or slower. You could use M mode, too, if you pay attention to the shutter speed.

But since you're not very experienced at this kind of shooting, P mode will let the camera dictate the exposure and let you concentrate on more important things, like your subjects. How they're posed, flash reflection from glasses, background, etc. You can use any mode you want. But group shots are complicated so I'm saying take it one step at a time.

Try to get them in some shade if you can. Otherwise, position so the sun is slightly behind them to give a nice hair light, but not directly behind them where it can cause lens flare.

Good luck!

[Laramie]

Much appreciated Curtis thanks!!