Lens Flare Portraits

[rachb]

This is a photo from a recent shoot at an old barn a friend told me about. My question is if you think the flare works in this shot? I am a huge fan of shooting into the sun, but I realize that it might be more of a personal taste, so just want some more opinions. And if anyone has advice on any possible way to do this without losing detail like I tend to do, I'd appreciate that as well. I had been shooting with less light earlier inside the barn, so that's why my ISO is 400... didn't remember to turn it down before this one... would that cause lost details at all? Thanks!



Camera Canon EOS REBEL T3i
Exposure 0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture f/7.1
Focal Length 18 mm
ISO Speed 400
Exposure Bias 0 EV

[ccting]

Wow, nice lighting..

Q1: Can you explain the placement of the sun on their forehead and not near to other part of their body? I believe some will put between their mouth, some put between their head etc ..

Q2: Do you hide some part of the sun behind the subject? how many percent of sun you hide behind the subject and your reasoning is?

Q3: Metering = spot??

Q4: Do you reflect any light on the subject?

Q5: Reasoning for using f/7.1 @ ISO 400

Q6: Reasoning for not using higher shutter speed with small f-number?

Q7: Auto-iso on with minimum shutter speed?

Q8: I believe their faces are the detail you want to reserve. Pay attention on the background around their faces. What do you notice ?

Q9: The sun looks near the horizon. I wander if there is a need to shoot under a roof (for shade??).. If you do, i believe you may made the shot harder..

Q10: Any reasoning for the selection of clothes?

Some other things that i have learned are:
a) dead center horizon
b) Not filling the frame (remember the recent article "shoot closer")
c) Pay attention to the background and surrounding...?


I love ISO 400 outdoors as it can aligned with faster shutter speed.. How is your ISO performance of your camera.. I see some experts who use D3x always use ISO 400 (max) with high shutter speed for wedding photography with the reason that its ISO 400 is clean from noise.

ISO 400 for D5100 is great, and no noise is noticeable outdoors. According to my reading, your Canon camera have better ISO performance @ISO 400 than D5100. I think it should not have any negative impact for choosing ISO 400. Other experts may critique this troll argument.

I am asking because i wish to learn...

[Doug Sundseth]

I wouldn't expect a T3i to have any problems at ISO 400. But in any case, the effect of high ISO is noise. The noise could obscure detail, but it would be obviously noise.

Shooting into the sun such that you get flare and over-exposure bloom will obscure detail. In fact that's one of the primary characteristics of this sort of shot.

If you're trying for backlighting, you'll want to bring light into the near side (flash or possibly bounce) to raise the exposure there relative to the background.

[Niresangwa]

Just a case of the high contrast caused by the sun vs the under exposed subjects. We just a had a thread a few posts down about flare...

For what it is, it works just fine.. I would definitely clone out the tree between their mouths however.

[bkjerabek]

I think you saw it, shot it, then said " Rats! I almost got that shot!" A tiny bit less sun showing and a little more flarey and it would be so cool! Either way it is a nice shot.

[ccting]

do we hv tutorial on this kind of shot?

[rachb]

Thanks guys, didn't even see that tree in between their mouths. That's why I love DPS

[Vincent_G]

Originally Posted by rachb

Thanks guys, didn't even see that tree in between their mouths. That's why I love DPS

..and the chins ..looks like they have beards. soooorrrrry it's hard to cringe and smile at the same time on the Internet.