Advice anybody?

I've been taking photos for a while now, and one issue I'm always running into is shadows.
For Example, at a Zoo, getting a photo of an animal and many shadows get in the road, making the shot useless for display purposes, would a flash fix this, or do I need to think outside the box?

Also, I've noticed in the people section there are wonderful and occasionally not so good attempts at getting a line of people at different distances with almost equal lighting, no over or under exposure. How is this achieved?

Thanks in advance

Can you should a pic of the shadows getting in the road? I don't understand.

Re people in lines with equal exposure you need the light source an equal distance from each (eg the sun), or multiple flash units.

Yeah if you can find a pic that shows what you mean it might help us out...

Love the pics from your website.
And I just twigged where I know you from! Hows life on AussieV8 these days? I havent been on there for ages!

A more descriptive title to your post may help with getting more responses.

Banno wrote in post #5870946
Yeah if you can find a pic that shows what you mean it might help us out...

Love the pics from your website.
And I just twigged where I know you from! Hows life on AussieV8 these days? I havent been on there for ages!

Thanks Shane, You'll find I'm very frequently on AussieV8, I just don't post that often. Love that place, not as much as I love this forum however.
Here are some similar examples of what I'm getting at. I'm just trying to get past sunny/cloudy areas for a decent consistant light, much more common in the motorsports field. You'll notice they have images close and far, and the subject in the middle - however I can't get past having a good light amount on the subject and not wanting the tree (closer) to be too overexposed. I think I might be asking for too much.

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From what you've shown, it's clear that the elephant is your focus here - spot metering for the elephant would have solved your problem, without any need for flash.

Elephants generally make great meter and white balance aids. I thought about adding one to my kit but the downsides out-weighed the uses (as did the elephant).

Spot metering on the elephant will get the elephant metered correctly but the surrounding scenery would still have exposure problems.

Any chance you could include the exif on those images? #2 is what I would expect, it's typical of average metering with a backlit subject. The others look like spot metering gone awry.

BTW - shooting on cloudy days helps too. Or other times of the day. Early morning, later afternoon.

Any time you have a bright background and something in the foreground in shadow you expose for the background, and use a flash to light the subject (elephant) in the foreground. As the elephant's dark you'd want FEC of 0 or -1.

To answer in a more general manner.

Yes, a flash would really help in these situations where you have a scene with a huge dynamic range (very bright areas, and very dense shadows).

The flash would allow you to bring the lighting level in the shadows up to, or close to the bright areas. This would decrease the dynamic range of the scene and help tame your problem.

I also suggest a title that is less ambiguous so those that can help are likely to read the thread.

Enjoy! Lon

A flash will definitely help out here, maybe source a 430EX or a 580EXII (depending on the weight of your wallet) that way the ETTL will help you out.

Set the meter mode to spot meter, meter off the sky (set your exposure while pointing at the sky behind your focus point) then recompose focus on your target and fire away!

Hope that helps, and dont hate me if I spelt out the obvious to you, just tryin to help and not sure what level your on...

What are the distances involved here? That sun looks like it will keep the shutter above max sync speed even at a high f-stop. Flash range will be seriously impacted.

I was about 10-15 meters from the elephant, I'll get the exif up soon, on a busy schedule at the moment. Thanks for the feedback, wasn't entirely sure about metering off the sky, can you enlighten me exactly how to do this?

edit: Yea know thesetting, not sure how to meter from the point though.

Can't believe I've gone so long without realising the entire technique.... lol.

With the camera in M point it at the sky and adjust for under exposure by -1 to -2. Flash in ETTL mode and fire. If the shutter speed needed is over max sync speed the flash will have to be in high speed sync. High speed sync will not cover 10 meters.