Friday, September 19, 2008

"Afternoon Delight"

"Afternoon Delight"
© David A. Ziser

This image was one the class's favorites that I shot this week. We were moving from one location to another when I decided I might get an interesting image shooting directly into the sun with my bride positioned at the top of the steps. The challenge was to get the proper exposure on her while trying not to go blind in the process. I had my assistant bring my off-camera flash - my trusty Quantum - right into the frame so I had strong enough light to overcome the bright light of the sun. The strobe head was easily removed in Photoshop. By keeping the subject in the "flash sync" portion of the viewfinder, I was able to use a sync speed higher that the native sync speed of the camera. That allowed me to darken the sky even more for the dramatic effect. The on-camera flash provided enough fill to open the very dark shadows created with my off-camera flash giving a quite dramatic and pleasing result. Camera specs; Canon 40D fitted with 10-22mm lens at 10mm, F18 @ 1/400 second, ISO 200. Enjoy! -David

6 comments:

  1. Very cool. David, what do you mean by keeping your subject in the "flash sync" portion of the viewfinder?

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  2. I really would like to see this image bigger and better quality

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  3. Hi David, Sweet shot. Did you use a polarizer or added the super blue sky in post?


    "Brian"

    If you use a shutter speed higher than your camera's electronics will allow, you will get a VERY DARK or Completely dark horizontal streak on a portion of your image due to the shutter closing too fast. However, the other portion will have a proper exposure. I think he means he kept the subject standing in that part of the exposure un affected by the dark streak.

    Oh and David is that why you chose the 10-22mm to keep your subject in the sync area?

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  4. This could make for an interesting movie poster, but I'm not so sure a bride would appreciate it as a wedding photo. Seems more about the photograph than the subject.

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  5. Just curious if you also had to do some Photoshopping to reduce the sun rays? While I love this technique of shooting into the sun at a small aperture for rays, my 10-22 lens can easily send out flares that completely overwhelm the photo. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Here's an example. (The dirty lens didn't help!)

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  6. Hi JAson, Just used Lightroom to darken sky - David

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