Tips for photographing portraits outside during the daytime
One of the biggest gripes of photographers shooting portraits outside during the daytime, is that photo’s often turn out with a perfectly exposed background or skyline, yet the person they are photographing are too dark or underexposed.
Take the image below for example. The camera has adjusted the exposure on the scenery as a whole, therefore mistakenly underexposing the actual person seen on the right. This problem occured because the camera gave the brighter background priority, due to it taking up a larger portion of the composition than the person.
After seeing an image like the one shown above, those new to portrait photography often make the mistake of overexposing the next shot. While this works to expose the person correctly, it also badly overexposes the background, making it appear much too white or blown out. Let’s face it, in many circumstances outdoor portraits are taken to show where the person has been or visited. Wether it be a day at a theme park or a tourist destination.
How to take good outside portraits of a well exposed person and background
The trick to taking a well exposed portrait photograph (outside during the daytime) is by using your camera’s onboard flash to compensate for the underexposure. A camera flash has a range of only a few meters, therefore the extra light won’t effect your background. This will help you achieve a portrait exposure that displays correct lighting for both the person and the background, as demonstrated in the image below.
Note: Your camera most likely will not pop up its onboard flash automatically in bright daylight conditions, so you’ll need to do this manually. Most SLR camera’s nowadays have a small button for this on the camera’s body. The image below shows where the manual flash button can be found on a Canon 400D, however most SLR’s have them in similar positions.
The video workshop shown below has been developed by DSLRTips.com. Towards the end of the demonstration, it also shows how portrait photographers can use the camera’s onboard flash to get rid of unwanted shadows that appear across the face if shooting later in the afternoon, when the sun is lower.
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