How I made a portrait shooting straight into the sun

[stevoarnold]

There were a few things I wanted to try out the other day, shooting straight into the sun, getting that starburst effect on the sun and using some flash outdoors to underexpose the daylight. I managed to squeeze all of them into this one shot of my girlfriend Sonia on Cronulla beach last monday. Here's a rundown of how I made this shot:

I started by getting an exposure for the ambient light. I wanted to underexpose by a stop or so, so I started by setting my shutter to 1/250s which was the fastest my flashes will sync at and then setting my ISO to 100. Then I wound down my aperture to get the scene looking how I wanted it (ie slightly underexposed). Turns out f16 was about right.

I had two flash units (Cactus' rebadged Vivitar 285) at my disposal and given how bright the sun was I just threw them on full power straight away. Placing one either side of Sonia I adjusted them for distance until her exposure looked about right.

Finally I took a few snaps and hey presto, this is what came out.

There is a fair bit of trial and error in my method, a few test shots before getting the final image, but I figure as long as its not complete guessing and that I do know how to achieve what I want to achieve then it's probably ok.

A couple of other points to note; the starburst effect is achieved by setting a small aperture - you can do this on the sun, or any other focused light source.
Secondly 1/250s shutter speed is technically faster than my flashes will sync fully, but the result of using it is a darker bottom edge on the image - which I used to act as a pseudo grad filter on the left side of the shot (having flipped the camera around!) making the flash seem more focused on sonia (notice the darker sand in the bottom left corner, getting brighter around her hands)

Due to how bright the sun was and therefore how small I had to have the aperture set, I would have lost too much light to using umbrellas - so the shadows are quite hard. Also, it was as windy as hell so they would most likely have flown off anyway.

Anyway theres probably a bunch of stuff ive forgotten to mention so if you have any questions please ask! Here's the photo:



I have a few other shots from the same session on my blog, just click the image above to have a look if you wish.

Tarra for now

[wannabephotographer]

Very nice. I think the sunglasses definitely helped the model and shot.

[Amplify-Creativity]

Very creative and different. These photos are stunning. I especially love the photo you have here and the one on your page with your gf looking down and the sun in it.

[Wifey]

Very nice! Thanks for sharing - I'm currently working myself through fill flash and shooting into the sun, so I appreciate your post.

That's a great shot!