Balancing Outdoor Bright Light with Indoor Light

So today we go to relatives for Thanksgiving. And Happy Thanksgiving to you all and thanks for your help in advance.

Situation:

Scene through huge picture window (looking outward from living room(
Beautiful winter wonderland of lake surrounded by snow-covered trees. Very bright outside.

Normal room light inside.

Equipment: 5D3 with hotshoe mounted 600ex-rt.

Three people posing against picture window.

me: about 5 feet away.

Could not, no matter what settings I used, properly light subjects and maintain proper exposure of the view out the window.

What the hell was I doing wrong? In order to get the subjects properly exposed and not too dark, the view out the window was completely blown out.

I'm all ears. But I ask again, please keep it simple. Dumb it down for a dummy.

Thanks.
Mark

Set camera to manual exposure. With shutter speed at 1/200' or slower, set your ISO and aperture to properly expose the outside scene.

Then turn on your flash. I'd bounce it off the ceiling if its neutral colored and not too high. If ETTL on the flash will give you the desired exposure, great. If not, manually adjust the flash power to balance properly. You'll probably be at or near full power.

You may need to intentionally overexpose the outside scene a bit and recover it in the computer, assuming you shoot raw. This is if you just don't have enough flash power while bounced. As a last resort, you can aim the flash directly at the subject but it won't look as good.

HSS is your friend. I bet you could get that exposed properly easily with manual mode on the camera and set the flash to hss. I'd start with a base of f4, iso 320 and ss of 1/1250 to start. Then from there you can dial in ss or iso for best results.

That's how I do it all the time.

you need to expose for the background. then add flash to balance.

you would have zero'd out the winter wonderland using evaluative metering by starting with an iso of 200 or so, shutter speed at flash sync speed (1/250 for canon) and adjusting aperture to zero out the scene. then bring it down by 2 stops or so and add flash on manual starting at maybe 1/16th power. finally i would increase flash power (or flash distance to subject) until the lighting was balanced.

MDJAK wrote in post #17296803
So today we go to relatives for Thanksgiving. And Happy

I'm all ears. But I ask again, please keep it simple. Dumb it down for a dummy.

Easy peasy. Just get yourself a 5ft x 5ft 3 stop ND gel and stick it to the outside of the window. Put all the camera settings on auto then fire away!

Hope you got the shot.
This is a common problem that HSS was designed to fix.

dmward wrote in post #17297456
Hope you got the shot.
This is a common problem that HSS was designed to fix.

Exactly! Works for me every time.

MDJAK wrote in post #17296803
What the hell was I doing wrong? In order to get the subjects properly exposed and not too dark, the view out the window was completely blown out.

I'm all ears. But I ask again, please keep it simple. Dumb it down for a dummy.

Thanks.
Mark

It's staggering to me that someone with 25,415 posts spanning 10 years on a photography forum would on need to ask this question.

Strobo wrote in post #17296931
Easy peasy. Just get yourself a 5ft x 5ft 3 stop ND gel and stick it to the outside of the window. Put all the camera settings on auto then fire away!

This made me chuckle!

But seriously…manual camera settings, HSS or an ND filter will solve your issues. All good advise above.

idsurfer wrote in post #17297601
It's staggering to me that someone with 25,415 posts spanning 10 years on a photography forum would on need to ask this question.

This made me chuckle!

But seriously…manual camera settings, HSS or an ND filter will solve your issues. All good advise above.

Nobody knows everything. If you aren't learning something every time you shoot, you're kidding yourself.

👍

mattymx wrote in post #17297718
Nobody knows everything. If you aren't learning something every time you shoot, you're kidding yourself.

👍

True, true, true!

the flash isn't pointed at the subject.

I understand what you are going for, but you are wasting a ton of juice by trying to bounce. HSS is (probably) not going to save you if you want to bounce the flash.

Set manual exposure for scene with the outdoor highlights about to blow. Turn on every light in the room. Rubber band a 3x5 white card to the flash to bounce some light forward, point flash up and put it on 1/1. That might do it, if not point the flash at the subject.

Hopefully it will remain cloudy, if the sun comes out, forget about it. Although HSS and direct flash might get you there.

since you have image editing on. Yes this is a little weird looking, but it was done with a jpg not a RAW and the exposure was way off. Just a little closer with the exposure and a good file and it would be an easy fix in post.

hes gone wrote in post #17297907
=he's gone;17297907]since you have image editing on. Yes this is a little weird looking, but it was done with a jpg not a RAW and the exposure was way off. Just a little closer with the exposure and a good file and it would be an easy fix in post.

My D800 would have handled that no problem.

Oops. Am I allowed to say that here?

Haha. I was about to say a Nikon/sony file would really help here.

It does look like this would have been solved by exposing for the outside, like in the second image, and then just bouncing flash and turning up the power, either manually or through flash exposure compensation, until proper exposure is reached on the subject.

Strobo wrote in post #17298503
My D800 would have handled that no problem.

Oops. Am I allowed to say that here?

I've recovered usable images from far worse than the second photo with my 5D3. Do you have a point?