High noise in backlit portrait shots?

8 years 9 months ago #445661 by Dave Burburry
I'm having a tough time figuring this out. When I'm doing portraits where the person is backlit, and the light is going around them, from behind them. The persons face becomes very noisy. I was photographing my wife in front of a window and it was bright outside, when I zoom into her face, she's all grainy.

Any ideas on how to fix this or prevent his from happening?


Photo Comments
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8 years 9 months ago #445704 by garyrhook
Are you exposing for the backlight, or the face? Those are two wildly different values in the situation you describe. You can't get both right in a single shot.

The usual solution is to use fill flash and expose for the face. The fill flash has to be powerful enough to allow you to balance it against whatever is behind your subject.


Photo Comments
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8 years 9 months ago #445796 by tganiats
Yes...Seeing an example of the unprocessed image will help.


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8 years 9 months ago #445873 by Shadowfixer1

Dave Burburry wrote: I'm having a tough time figuring this out. When I'm doing portraits where the person is backlit, and the light is going around them, from behind them. The persons face becomes very noisy. I was photographing my wife in front of a window and it was bright outside, when I zoom into her face, she's all grainy.

Any ideas on how to fix this or prevent his from happening?

The face is grainy because it's underexposed. What is important in the image? The face? Make sure the important part or subject of the image is properly exposed. There are numerous ways to do this. Fill flash, reflectors or a simple re-positioning of the subject so the window light or whatever light source is used, creates the lighting effect you are after. Meter on the face if not using fill flash and expose for the face. If using fill flash you will have to determine how much to use the properly expose the face.
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