| 00:00 | I'm back at the computer here, looking
at the shots from our fill-flash shoot
|
| 00:04 | and this is where I ended up.
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| 00:07 | This is kind of the end of the story
here, but I wanted to show it to you first
|
| 00:10 | because fill-flash can be natural looking.
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| 00:14 | It can be beautiful.
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| 00:16 | But we didn't start here and if you
watch the previous movie on the fill-flash
|
| 00:20 | technique, you can see that we
really had to work the scene.
|
| 00:23 | So let's kind of work through it back here
on the computer and see how we got to here.
|
| 00:29 | So I am going to go back to
the beginning of the story.
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| 00:32 | So here we are in bright
sunlight, no fill-flash, no anything.
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| 00:37 | We have seen this before. We've got
very hot highlights in certain areas,
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| 00:41 | dark in other areas.
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| 00:43 | It's just too contrasty for most people,
I mean as beautiful as Edie is here,
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| 00:48 | this lighting is just not flattering
for her and we want to get away from it
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| 00:52 | as soon as possible.
|
| 00:53 | So we turn on the flash and regular fill-flash
without any major adjustments is
|
| 00:59 | an improvement already. You can tell.
|
| 01:01 | We've gone a long ways from here to
here just by turning on the flash.
|
| 01:06 | You'll still see that we have some hot
areas here that are not as contrasty, but
|
| 01:12 | we've opened up the eyes. Overall we
have made some big improvements, but we
|
| 01:15 | still have some fine tuning we can do.
|
| 01:18 | The next thing that I did was just move
the model a little bit and sometimes it
|
| 01:22 | really comes down to that - moving the
model so that the light is falling on her
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| 01:27 | from the sun in a different way.
|
| 01:29 | Remember, the sun is still
part of the equation here.
|
| 01:32 | We are using Fill light to help smooth
out the sun, but the sun is still a player.
|
| 01:37 | And the difference between a shot like
this where we have some hot spots, and a
|
| 01:42 | shot like this is simply just changing
the direction of the model a little bit.
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| 01:46 | So keep that in mind.
|
| 01:48 | Remember, you're working
all these things together.
|
| 01:51 | Now what I've done here is I've
actually darkened the background a little bit
|
| 01:55 | and I've changed the flash exposure
compensation and we have two controls here
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| 02:01 | that can work together.
|
| 02:03 | You can control the ambient part
of the picture with your regular
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| 02:07 | exposure compensation.
|
| 02:09 | So you can make it darker by dialing it
down, in this case, to -0.5, or you can
|
| 02:14 | make it brighter by dialing it up to +0.5 or +1.
|
| 02:19 | In this case, I dialed it down a little
bit and I've also turned down the flash
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| 02:24 | exposure compensation to -1, so that
the flash effect isn't quite as strong.
|
| 02:30 | So this is a much different
picture than this shot here.
|
| 02:34 | Now which one you like better is up to you.
|
| 02:37 | What we are really learning how to do
is control our camera so that we can
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| 02:41 | predict the kind of effects
that it's going to produce for us.
|
| 02:45 | Now here, I have dialed down the
regular exposure compensation even more to 1.5.
|
| 02:51 | and have a nice dark background
here. And the flash exposure is at -1.
|
| 02:59 | Now one thing about this shot, as I look
at it on the computer, is I think I did a
|
| 03:04 | good job with the flash exposure
compensation and the dark background is
|
| 03:08 | interesting, but the angle of the
model has come into play here and we are
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| 03:13 | catching some kind of odd light patterns here.
|
| 03:16 | And that's totally my doing in
the way that I positioned her.
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| 03:20 | So you want to really keep an eye on
how the natural light is falling on the
|
| 03:24 | model because it will make a big
difference as you can see here.
|
| 03:28 | Now if we take these three shots, let's
just put them, just for a moment, side
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| 03:32 | by side so you can really see the
effect of exposure compensation.
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| 03:37 | So here's no regular exposure compensation.
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| 03:41 | Here is -0.5 and here is -1.5.
|
| 03:45 | So you can see that you have a lot of
control over how intense the background is.
|
| 03:51 | Now the model is staying relatively
in the same exposure range and that's
|
| 03:56 | primarily because that's
controlled by the flash.
|
| 03:59 | So as long as the flash is within
eight to ten feet of the model, which is
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| 04:03 | normally where you want to be,
|
| 04:05 | that's where the flash is effective,
then that will control the lighting on
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| 04:10 | her in conjunction with the sun and
then regular exposure compensation
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| 04:14 | controls our background. All right.
|
| 04:16 | Let's move on.
|
| 04:18 | Now this is going to be a
very different look right here.
|
| 04:21 | Suddenly, we are not seeing
those very hot spots anymore.
|
| 04:25 | That's because we have moved into the
shade and I will tell you, if you have the
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| 04:29 | opportunity, if it works out to where
you could say to the subject, "Hey. Can we
|
| 04:33 | just walk ten steps over here and
there's a nice shady tree and I'd like to try
|
| 04:37 | a few shots there if you have a moment."
|
| 04:39 | It makes all the difference in the
world because now we have a much more
|
| 04:43 | diffused light because we're in the
shade and we used the fill-flash just to add
|
| 04:47 | a little pop to the eyes
and a little glow to the skin.
|
| 04:50 | Now in Edie's case, because she has
darker skin, in the shade, I did not want to
|
| 04:55 | use full-flash because then we
get that very hot fill-flash look.
|
| 04:59 | It looks unnatural.
|
| 05:00 | But if you look at this shot,
it looks fairly natural.
|
| 05:03 | Now photographers would know that there
is a little Fill light because we know
|
| 05:06 | these things, right?
|
| 05:08 | But it's a fairly natural looking shot.
|
| 05:10 | So here, we have the fill-flash set to
-1.5, just adding a little supplemental
|
| 05:16 | light and it gives it a natural look.
|
| 05:18 | Now the other thing that I did was
because we are under a tree and the light is
|
| 05:22 | a little cooler here, a little more
bluish, I changed the White balance from
|
| 05:28 | Auto to Cloudy and Cloudy
warms things up a little bit.
|
| 05:32 | So I dialed back flash exposure
compensation and then change the color
|
| 05:38 | temperature, the White balance setting,
just a little bit so we get a nice warm look.
|
| 05:42 | And I think we really hit our stride
with this particular setup because as
|
| 05:47 | you'll see, by looking at these shots,
I think they're very attractive of Edie.
|
| 05:52 | We have some nice things going on in
the background here and if I wanted to
|
| 05:56 | brighten that up, I could just by
changing the exposure compensation to maybe +5
|
| 06:02 | or +1, but I sort of like it the way that it is.
|
| 06:06 | And here we go again, fill-flash, -1.5,
White balance on Cloudy and we end up
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| 06:14 | with this very nice series of shots.
|
| 06:16 | So as you can see, fill-flash
does give you a lot of options.
|
| 06:20 | Sometimes when you're out in the bright
sun you're just trying to save the shot.
|
| 06:24 | But when you use it in conditions that
are less harsh you can really move the
|
| 06:29 | whole ball forward, the whole
game forward by using the fill-flash.
|
| 06:33 | So, it's up to you.
|
| 06:34 | I would practice both, both out in the
bright sun and in the shade and see what
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| 06:39 | kind of results you get.
|
| 06:40 | Play with the exposure compensation,
both for the background and then the flash
|
| 06:44 | exposure compensation, for your subject.
|
| 06:47 | I'm sure you're going to find
the right combination that makes a
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| 06:50 | perfect portrait for you.
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