Photographing dark skin people

Thank you for the advice so far . My friend and her boyfriend are a little darker then medium but I was more worried of losing the features of there faces then anything

I also wanted to say that if you place those skin tones that in reality in available light that should be down around zone III or IV and bring them up to zone V then the rest of the tones in the image are also going to go up so be aware you might blow out a lot of the highlights. These are all choices we have to make. If the highlights aren't important I usually will let them go.

Williammontgomery1 wrote in post #14979119
Thank you for the advice so far . My friend and her boyfriend are a little darker then medium but I was more worried of losing the features of there faces then anything

If you hold up a piece of white paper in front of them and meter so that it's exposed properly and lock those settings down you'll be good to go until the lighting changes.

In other words, under the same lighting, a dark skin person and a light skin person will both be exposed properly using the same exposure settings.

I always expose for what's most important. Since I shoot weddings that tends to be the bride and her dress. I don't pay special attention to skin color when shooting people with darker skin since I usually expose for the dress.

Here are a few examples.

Williammontgomery1 wrote in post #14979119
Thank you for the advice so far . My friend and her boyfriend are a little darker then medium but I was more worried of losing the features of there faces then anything

Here is a better shot around late morning, 10am.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.oneimagingp​hotography.com …231160&k=NW9JBj​b&lb=1&s=A

That's a MUCH better example, TooManyShots!

Yours are awesome too Nick!

airfrogusmc wrote in post #14979158
These are all choices we have to make. If the highlights aren't important I usually will let them go.

This pretty much sums things up. You have to decide what is the most important and expose for that. Sometimes that's easy, like with the wedding dress, sometimes it's not. Do you imagine having contrast similar to a white wedding dress and darker skin? If not, I wouldn't really be too concerned about it.

cdifoto wrote in post #14979199
That's a MUCH better example, TooManyShots!

Yours are awesome too Nick!

That's because the ambient light was good and I wasn't underexposed to the ambient. Didn't need to. The flash acted more like a fill. For the OP, I think you are better off adding fill light with a strobe.

Couple of more examples.

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Williammontgomery1 wrote in post #14979119
Thank you for the advice so far . My friend and her boyfriend are a little darker then medium but I was more worried of losing the features of there faces then anything

What kind of shoot is this going to be?
Indoors? Outdoors?
E-session?

TooManyShots wrote in post #14979241
That's because the ambient light was good and I wasn't underexposed to the ambient. Didn't need to. The flash acted more like a fill. For the OP, I think you are better off adding fill light with a strobe.

I think lighting, and of course the look the OP is going for to a certain extent, will dictate the need for supplemental lighting. Not the color of the subject's skin.

First off nick those photos are very nice and the advice is great ,so basically your saying set my exposure more for something that is more prominent such as the clothing ?

Williammontgomery1 wrote in post #14979261
First off nick those photos are very nice and the advice is great ,so basically your saying set my exposure more for something that is more prominent such as the clothing ?

That's not exactly what I said. I said expose for what you think is the most important. I gave a white wedding dress as an example since I shoot weddings and to me, that's usually the most important part of the frame. So as long as I expose correctly for the dress, my exposure is where I want it to be, regardless of skin color.

You also have to be willing let things blow out depending on the situation. For example, if my bride was back-lit and I expose for her face, you can bet your behind a good chunk of her dress is going to be completely blown out. But if that's the look I want, then I don't really care about clipping highlights. Worrying about that is really limiting, but it also depends on the type of shots you are talking about.

It will be outside but it has been a lot of clouds lately and raining so I'm expecting same conditions based on weather report

Williammontgomery1 wrote in post #14979261
First off nick those photos are very nice and the advice is great ,so basically your saying set my exposure more for something that is more prominent such as the clothing ?

Is the color of the clothing. If the dynamic range is too great between the skin color and the color of the clothing, you have to decide where to expose. Your worst case is obviously a very dark skin person dresses in white. In that case, I would probably expose the clothing but overexposing 1 to 2 stops. Without some sorts of fill light (from the strobe or indirect natural light), the person's face would look dark.