dreaded contrast

[fortunato_uno]

the time of day was about 2 O'clock in the afternoon. a clear blue sky and sun over my shoulder.

canon rebal xsi (450D)

Manual
shutter speed 1/800

iso 400

aperture f/7.1

focal length 55mm

w/d auto

manual focus

[EOBeav]

Get her in the shade. So much sunlight creates ugly shadows like that.

[EMansfield]

If you absolutely need to shoot in direct sunlight you may consider holding a diffuser to the subject's upper left and using a reflector on the right to create more even lighting across her face; however, this won't as neatly solve the contrast problem as shooting in the shade would.

[fortunato_uno]

those ideas are great really, but if you look at her hair you'll see she's in mid flight. she and seven others (either nieces or nephews) were flying around a play ground, playing tag. guess i should have mentioned that.
so i was thinking use the flash but, that would give the posissions away (and what uncle would do that to a kid). do you think a lower iso? maybe with a higher shutter speed and a stop of 5.6?

[cphoniball]

Changing the camera settings isn't going to change the quality of light in the picture, so it wouldnt' do anything about the harsh shadows the others have mentioned. From your description it sounds like this was more of a snapshot than a portrait, in which case you want a different critique. As a snapshot, I'd say you'd want to try to catch her in a more shady spot if there was one on the playground, and possibly one with a little less distracting background. Putting her off-center might help to add a bit more visual tension to the shot as well and make it more interesting.

Also I'm not sure if you simply enjoy manually focusing, in which case continue on doing so, but if you are manually focusing because auto wasn't working for these fast action shots, I'd suggest switching to AI Servo focus and using a continuous shooting mode on the XSi.

[fortunato_uno]

but really
i wonder if i set the internal settings to have less contrast, would it have evened it out a little ?

[AnneWynne]

Welcome to DPS!

Shooting in harsh sunlight will always create challenges. You can change your ISO to a higher number (here is a link that discusses ISO ~ 1/ISO at f/16 in full sunlight - anyone remember?: Canon EOS 7D / 50D - 10D Forum: Digital Photography Review ) Also, learn to use your histogram in your playback screen, it will help you find the correct settings.

Good Luck.
Anne

[cphoniball]

Originally Posted by fortunato_uno

but really
i wonder if i set the internal settings to have less contrast, would it have evened it out a little ?

Maybe. But then you'd have a really flat and uninteresting picture with low contrast, yes?

[fortunato_uno]

thanks anne for the link. i'm sort of like the guy who's comment that post was in response to. i moved to dslr the end of summer and have been trying to figure how to adjust the internal operations.
wich leads me to cphoniball. thanks. i had the same concerns about loosing the quality by changing those internals. i do have some of the settings bumped up on the (what canon calls) picture styles. i try to shoot with my own settings (the xsi allows for three to be programmed). i haven't tryed to bring those settings into a negative level (yet). the tough thing is florida weather changes so fast that it often goes from brilliant sun to massive cloud cover in a short period of time, so i often go from nutral to + on those.settings.
honestly, with input like what you guys have given me and a whole lot of shots. i might just sort out this new way of shooting.
thanks again, fortunato_uno