When you are shooting something and you have a bright background, but no flash. And the background is overpowering your cameras meter, how are you dealing with that? My subject is turning dark. On the other hand, if I expose for my subject, the background is seriously blown out.
Use the exposure compensation dial on the camera. Or, set the meter. to Spot, and hunt around the subject for a spot that seems to give you what you want overall.
Aim for the model/talent/subject and dont worry if the background goes overblown since what matters is the person in front of your camera.
If you are not sure how to measure the light falling on the face of the person or you can't get close to them all you need to do is hold your hand or a white card in front of you then target your lens on your hand/white card and read what is telling you and go with that. That is what spot meter means. This works well when the sun or brightness is behind and above the talent been photograph.
If the subject is dark then open it another stop or two depending how dark subject is.
Another way to do it is set the sun right behind subject's head, dont forget to meter your hand/white card for the right f/stop, then just shoot. The wonderful thing when doing this is that your subjects will have a wonderful hallow of light behind their heads and if you open if 1 to 1/2 stop beyond what the camera is telling you it will really seep the light out and around the subject's head giving it a warm look.
Look at this image I shot on film in the early 90s of this beautiful Spanish girl during one of my trips to Spain and see how the light just bathed her giving it a great royal look. Again this is film so not back screen to check if "I got it now or nayyy." Those things will come with practice and as your talent develops further.
Shooting this way is as good as it gets for the face will not have any shadows... just bright and clean. Is also perfect to shoot outdoor fashions, CEO portraits or anybody else.
One detail to keep in mind, do make sure you dont have any light leaking into your camera through your lens so you may want to flag the lens with something dark. Even your hand can be use to block any sun hitting your lens at all.
Paganelli wrote: Aim for the model/talent/subject and dont worry if the background goes overblown since what matters is the person in front of your camera.
If you are not sure how to measure the light falling on the face of the person or you can't get close to them all you need to do is hold your hand or a white card in front of you then target your lens on your hand/white card and read what is telling you and go with that. That is what spot meter means. This works well when the sun or brightness is behind and above the talent been photograph.
If the subject is dark then open it another stop or two depending how dark subject is.
Another way to do it is set the sun right behind subject's head, dont forget to meter your hand/white card for the right f/stop, then just shoot. The wonderful thing when doing this is that your subjects will have a wonderful hallow of light behind their heads and if you open if 1 to 1/2 stop beyond what the camera is telling you it will really seep the light out and around the subject's head giving it a warm look.
Look at this image I shot on film in the early 90s of this beautiful Spanish girl during one of my trips to Spain and see how the light just bathed her giving it a great royal look. Again this is film so not back screen to check if "I got it now or nayyy." Those things will come with practice and as your talent develops further.
Shooting this way is as good as it gets for the face will not have any shadows... just bright and clean. Is also perfect to shoot outdoor fashions, CEO portraits or anybody else.
One detail to keep in mind, do make sure you dont have any light leaking into your camera through your lens so you may want to flag the lens with something dark. Even your hand can be use to block any sun hitting your lens at all.
The problem is extreme dynamic range. Camera sensors (and film) have less ability to capture it than our eyes do. There are three solutions.
1. Throw more light on the dark areas of the subject
2. Make more than one exposure to cover the extremes and combine the images using HDR techniques.
3. Reduce dynamic range in post process
Or, of course, you can expose the subject and let the background blow out. Sometimes this is the best approach as it puts emphasis on the subject.
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great post!! 
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