Sunshiney Days

Happy May everyone! I am enjoying the sunshine. The SF Winter In The Summer will set in before we know it, and kids will need to be bundled up for outdoor photo shoots, and we will be plagued by fog. I've had to do many sunshine shoots recently, which is for fine tuning my sunshiny lighting technique. Basically, I need to use flash. Counter-intuitive, huh?

Even if I find a shady spot to shoot, the location might very well be back lit by grass that isn't shaded. The result if I let my camera do the thinking is an over exposed (very bright, almost white) blare of background and a cool blue shaded figure in the foreground. The flash (with diffuser) evens things out: the shutter doesn't have to be open as long to capture the figure in the foreground, and thus the background isn't blown out. Not too much flash is needed; I usually set my 430EX at -1/3 power or so. Don't want to get rid of all form (by filling in all the shadows with light).