Taking portraits with natural light

[ericltkong]

Not sure if there's anyone has post this but would be glad if anyone who can give me some guidance on when is the best time of the day to utilize natural light to shoot portrait, which kind of lens (prime or non-prime) and wat are the standard settings to be use (manual or AV or TV mode). thanx a bunch!

[Benji]

Originally Posted by ericltkong

Not sure if there's anyone has post this but would be glad if anyone who can give me some guidance on when is the best time of the day to utilize natural light to shoot portrait, which kind of lens (prime or non-prime) and what are the standard settings to be use (manual or AV or TV mode). thanx a bunch!

PORTRAITS.

Best time of day. Depends on what the sun is doing. DO NOT use (direct) sunshine as your main light source. It simply cannot be done well. Use what professionals use when outdoors, daylight. See this posting Light Sources and scroll down to # 6.

The best lens to use is the one you like to use, personally I like mid telephoto lenses because they will not distort like wide angle or long telephoto lenses will.

I shoot in Raw. I shoot a grey card at the beginning of every session and every time I change locations outdoors. I shoot in manual and I use a hand held meter 100% of the time.

What most people fail to realize is that the camera is just a dumb tool. It has been programmed by intelligent people, but it is still just a dumb tool. IMHO the biggest hinderance to learning photography are automatic settings on a camera. This allows the camera to "think" rather than the image maker, and as I said above the camera is dumb. You pose someone against a bright sky and the dumb camera thinks you are photographing the sky so it intentionally underexposes the subject! You knew you were photographing a person and that you wanted the person properly exposed, but the dumb camera didn't. Even if you checked the histogram (another really dumb part of the dumb camera) it also says the image is properly exposed and you are good to go (it is after all a part of that dumb camera!)

If you are serious about getting good consistant portraits every time, get a hand held meter. There is a Weston meter right now on ebay for $3.99. It is an ambient only meter but if most of your shooting will be outdoors that is all you will need. There is also a Minolta Flash Meter III for $65.00. I owned one of these for about 15 years and it is an EXCELLENT meter which reads both ambient and flash.

Benji

[ericltkong]

hi Benji, thanx for your tips. but at the moment i dun think i have time to get one light meter but maybe in the near future cause i'll be doing some shooting tomorrow. i plan to use manual mode but is it right when we focus and the exposure is either on the left or right, then we adjust the the dial so that the exposure goes back to the middle 0 point?

[LeeR]

Benji has given you some terrifc advice and if you will follow the link he provides I think you will agree that there are remarkable benefits to shooting in daylight rather than direct sunlight. On the other hand, I would respectfully disagree that in-camera metering is the scouge of amatuers everywhere.

I have carried a light meter for years and there are times when they are absolutely indespensible. But modern in camera meters are extremely sophisticated and, for the most part, do a pretty good job. What I think is important is understanding the limitations of the camera's meter and how to overcome them. For this I highly recommend kencaleno's post on the zone system. In a few paragraphs Ken explains how your camera may mislead you and a system steering it right. I suggest this as a starting point only, but a really good starting point.
And don't ignore Benji's advice: a few bucks for a light meter is a great investment in your photographic future.

[teaking]

Its the great metering debate

I will be staying out of it lol but to get you by with out a hand held meter if you are shooting in manual mode then change your metering mode to spot metering and then on your subjects face on a well lit portion of there face if possible (probably best if using a constant aperture lens as you can then zoom in if its variable dont zoom) and then set your exposure I would use around 0 for asian skin tones, from 0 up to +1 for Caucasian and from 0 to -1 2/3 for black skin tones. Then again it may just not be your cupa tea lol.

[ericltkong]

LeeR: thanx for the great link! really helpful though the first part about the 11 zones may need some time for me to digest.

another question is, to shoot ourdoor portrait on wat kind of metering; spot, evaluative or center-weighted?