dark foreground and bright background

Hey all,
I need some critique on these photos below. I would like to know what I did wrong and how I can fix it in the future. It seems like in the first one our faces are too dark, but I like the background and in the second one where I tried to use some fill flash (but have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to flash photography), our faces look blown, and the background looks too dark.

What could I have done to do this right?

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#1 - No Flash:
Odd that you chose manual focus - that was intentional, was it not?
Consider that the lighting is harsh and the sun is almost directly overhead (must be noon in the great Southwestern US). In fact, the shadows look like the sun may actually be a bit behind you. Not a good choice, but in this case did not do any noticeable damage. Harsh shadows in the eye sockets, exactly as one would expect. Sky is featureless - probably due to slight overexposure. I know, the faces are too dark. Besides, if you were metering off of the skin tones, then you are automatically guaranteed to be one stop too dark - right? Everyone knows facial tones should be placed on Zone VI, not Zone V, right?

# 2, with flash:
Two things got better using the flash. The sky was considerably darkened, giving it some texture and interest. (That's a natural result of the exposure now being a full stop less than in #1.)
The other beneficial effect is the faces are now lighted up with no ugly shadows in the eye sockets.
I don't consider that the faces got blown but even if they did, that's not what really got blown away for sure, and that's the young lady's jacket. It's gone - goodbye!
So, easily corrected by adusting the flash output to one stop less. There's a control for that somewhere on your 20D.

For the future - if you jockey around with the primary variables (f-stop, shutter and amount of flash) by putting your camera in manual you might be able to obtain a better compromise between the exposure for the background and the fill flash. Just reducing the flash alone may have some effect on the background - I'm not sure how these cameras decide what aperture to use when in flash mode, and that's one of the drawbacks of being in a programmed mode.

In this particular shot, I think you could have benefited from more lens opening to lighten the background (realizing that the sky will probably go bald at the same time), keep the 1/250th shutter and reduce the flash. Those are all things to have done at the time. I think you would have a tough time manipulating the background in software, although it can be done. Since this is a people shot, you can forget about holding still long enough to use a bracket shot for use in a later merge. However, a bracket shot would have been useful just for purposes of having more selections to choose from at print time.

Good information, thank you. They were both shot within 20 minutes of each other, the first was at 6:00 pm and the second about 6:22 pm.

Could you explain the last bit of your explanation of #1 for me? The part where you say "Everyone knows facial tones should be placed on Zone VI, not Zone V, right?"

Thanks!

Sure - the Zone system is based upon the idea that Zone V is exactly the shade of middle gray. By going up to Zone VI we would have a lighter value of tones that is more like what people's faces are expected to look like. So, depending upon a lot of other factors that we are ignoring, the simple rule is that if you are taking your meter reading directly from facial skin tones, then you want to use an exposure correction of +1 f-stop, which has the effect of placing the facial tones on Zone VI where they belong.

Clear as mud, right? Don't feel bad. Using the Zone system is not that difficult to learn - but understanding it takes a little longer.

One thing that I should also have mentioned is that the camera's internal exposure metering system, if left alone to do its thing, will place that which it is looking at right smack on Zone V.

I don't know what camera you are using, but you need to dig up the manual and read the section on flash exposure compensation. Without going into detail, setting the flash compensation lower will decrease the output of the flash unit. Then the subject and background will be more equally exposed, something in between the two shots you posted.

Rad

Good info guys, I'll do some more playing around with it here at home so that next time I'm down there I'll get it right!

FWIW, the camera is a 20d with a tamron 28-200mm lens

you just need to balance your exposures a little bit.Use AV mode (it will meter for available light) and the flash in ETTL. At that point your exposure SHOULD be balanced (foreground and background). From there on you have some latitude as far as where you want your tones, especially since you shoot RAW

thanks cmM, on further inspection I found that my custom function #3 (Flash Sync speen in Av mode) was set to 1/250 sec. I assume this would have something to do with why the second shot turned out so dark in the background? Am I correct to assume that? The way I understand it, is that if that were set to "Auto" then it would have set a shutter speed that would expose the shot correctly and just use the flash as fill, is that right?

Thanks for all the help!

Flash sync speed refers to the maximum shutter speed possible when using flash.
For example : if you work in Tv mode and set shutter speed to 1/500 and also you want to use the flash, the shutter speed will be automatically reset to 1/250.

Like cmM said, ETTL should do the trick to have balanced exposure on main subjects and background.

For the second shot I think that you get the dark backgound due to camera metering system.
The camera (I guess) considered more the exposure of the (main) subjects and ajusted the variables ( flash power, shutter speed and aperture ) to get a correct exposure of them.

Or if you have Photoshop use a Gradient Fill to darken the sky and it looks great.
Jon

Use a polarizing filter, and use a fill flash during the day. Let the camera meter for ambient light instead of your dark faces, and let the flash to the rest.