shooting wide open on d600

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fhibbs12

Senior Member
Well I am new and trying to learn(hence the reason I am on this site). So I have a question. I think I got a lot of the basics covered. Have been shooting in manual mode for quite some time but I find one thing a little tricky.

I am trying to get some creative shots wide open with my two 1.8 lens but am completely blowing out the skies. Not the typical creamy bokeh with the 85mm 1.8, just severely overexposed and blown out.

My problem is I seem to only be able to get down to roughly f4-5.6 with a 200-250 shutter speed to be able to use a fill flash (sb700) off camera and still sync. This results in blown out skies.

So are my options pretty much just a 2 stop ND filter roughly or are there any other tricks for outdoor shots, mainly portaits of my kids, shot wide open?

Don't bash me too bad!

Thanks
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
What Dave said. Wide open on a sunny day and you're going to be hard pressed not to be in the 1/1000+ range on your shutter speeds. Not sure why you're looking to use flash, so maybe a better explanation of what it is you're trying to do (I'm assuming you're dealing with backlighting or fill-in flash) to give us a better idea.
 
F

fhibbs12

Senior Member
LoL my explanation was horrible.

Let's try this again.

Scenerio:

I am shooting a 2 year old at high noon. Extremely bright out with horrible raccoon eyes.

I want to shoot in the 2.8 range and lower. Easy right.. I up the shutter speed to 1/2000 and start shooting.... Well background now looks great but my subject is extremely underexposed.... I spot meter for the subject and now the sky is blown out. I know the background won't be in focus but I still don't want it all blown out white.

My goal:

2 stop or so ND filter.... Would this allow me to meter for the background sky still but then allowing me to lower the shutter speed enough to sync the flashs for fill on the subject?

Allowing me to shoot with much shallower DoFs mid day in direct sunlight

Is that a little clearer on what i am trying to acheive?
 
F

fhibbs12

Senior Member
basically I want lower my shutter and aperature metering for backgrounds then using off camera flashes to create my own light to bring subjects back into exposure
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
If I was shooting this scenario I'd simply try shooting in Aperture Priority mode, keep an eye on my histograms and use the exposure compensation button. Metering would be set to use Matrix, at least to start with. I don't go "off" Matrix unless I see it's not working for me. Shooting at f/2.8 (or wider (!)) would not be my preference because, assuming something in the 35-50mm focal range, depth of field is going to be razor thin; probably fractions of an inch.

Fill flash would be an option here, but my first choice would be to simply get my subject OUT of that direct sunlight; it causes squinting and harsh shadows, the latter you're already dealing with and both are a pain.
 
F

fhibbs12

Senior Member
Metering would be set to use Matrix, at least to start with. I don't go "off" Matrix unless I see it's not working for me.
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This was underexposing my subjects.

depth of field is going to be razor thin; probably fractions of an inch.
Click to expand...

For what I was trying to do this is what I wanted.

Fill flash would be an option here, but my first choice would be to simply get my subject OUT of that direct sunlight
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I did. Basically they were under a covered bridge strictly in shaded areas but the bleeding sunlight in the far background was getting extremely over exposed.

That's why I was trying to use fill light but I could not get my shutter speed low enough to use high speed sync.
I'll try to get some of the over exposed shots on here later.
 
AC016

AC016

Senior Member
Only a suggestion, but perhaps you can try and do some bracketing? From there, you can merge the bracketed photos (HDR). Anyhow, only a suggestion.
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
fhibbs12 said:
[Matrix metering] was underexposing my subjects.
Click to expand...
Then try switching to Spot or Center Weighted; I'd try the latter first.

fhibbs12 said:
Basically they were under a covered bridge strictly in shaded areas but the bleeding sunlight in the far background was getting extremely over exposed.
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See above and be prepared to use Exposure Comp and/or bracket your shots. You have to remember your camera does not see light the same way your eye does, so you're going to have to experiment a little bit to find the right balance in this situation and may very well mean having some blown-out highlights in order to maintain proper exposure on your subject.

I would NOT expose for the background and then try to compensate for an under-exposed subject by using flash, personally, but if you want to I'm sure someone else better qualified to help you with that will have some suggestions for you. I'd simply come back at another time of day to avoid having the issue to begin with.



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NVSteve

Senior Member
I'd bump the exposure down. There is a great deal of latitude with the D600 output-much of the over/under exposed portions of an image can be recovered through software since there is no way to nail the shot with the correct exposure over the whole image.
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
What you have is just a bad lighting situation. On camera flash can work for you, but you're really getting in "strobist" territory. I'm not a flash guy, so I can't offer you specific advice other than to say that there's lots of information out there, but the first thing you're going to want is to get a "real" flash unit, and probably something that will allow you to hold it off the camera at an angle to the subject to more effectively neutralize the lighting.

The other option is to get a reflector and use the sun as your off camera flash. Might need a buddy or a stand to make this work.
 
J

jwstl

Senior Member
Horoscope Fish said:
I would NOT expose for the background and then try to compensate for an under-exposed subject by using flash, personally,

...
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Sorry, but that is exactly what you MUST do in that lighting situation. The only way to balance subject with background is to get the background exposure right and use a Speedlight to fix the underexposed subject. You could also try a relector to bounce light onto the subject but the bottom line is you must get the background exposure right because you can't control that. You can control an underexposed subject. Sure, it would be great to always shoot in perfect light but that's not always an option.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
jwstl said:
Sorry, but that is exactly what you MUST do in that lighting situation. The only way to balance subject with background is to get the background exposure right and use a Speedlight to fix the underexposed subject. You could also try a relector to bounce light onto the subject but the bottom line is you must get the background exposure right because you can't control that. You can control an underexposed subject. Sure, it would be great to always shoot in perfect light but that's not always an option.
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I understand you would need to balance the background and subject to get correct exposure but using a flash is not, as I said, what I would do personally. And flash is not the only solution; as you own post points out a reflector could be used. OR the subject could be moved OR the shot could be taken at another time of day OR when the conditions are different. There are plenty of options. Flash is simply not the one I would choose.



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Dave_W

The Dude
The best way to tell that you've picked a really bad place to do portraits is when you find yourself having to do backflips just to get a photo to look right. That should be your first clue that it's time to choose a different place to shoot.
 
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Nikonesian2

New member
I find the default exposure compensation on the D600 overexposes in general (at least for my taste). I would try dialing it down and using a mixture of ISO and shutter speed to get the best results; it's never going to be perfect wide open in bright environments.
 
friedmud

friedmud

Senior Member
Wow - I'm really surprised that no one has posted the real solution to his initial question!

What you need is "Auto FP" mode (also known as "high speed sync" on other camera systems).

The D600 can only "sync" with a flash up to 1/250. That means that you can only get full flash output up to 1/250... and with the default setting the camera won't go beyond that. If the camera were to try to move the shutter faster than that the flash would be blocked by the moving curtains and provide uneven lighting.

What "Auto FP" allows the flash to do is fire a bunch of times extremely rapidly (essentially providing a constant output for a moment) this gives the camera the chance to blow through a fast shutter speed in the middle of that rapid firing to get the subject evenly illuminated. This allows you to have high shutter speeds (over 1/250) for large aperture shooting in daylight.

Note that this does reduce flash output power... and the faster your shutter is the more the flash power is reduced. When in this mode the flash actually tells you the maximum effective distance right on the LCD... very cool!

I always shoot outdoor portraits this way. Depending on the situation I might tone down the flash a bit so that it looks more natural, but it's a great way to get a bit of fill light to soften facial shadows.

On the D600 you set this up using custom setting e1... just set it to either of the "Auto FP" settings at the top (but why not choose 1/250??). Look around page 234 in the manual.

In addition, I highly recommend decoupling background exposure compensation and flash exposure compensation. Set e4 to "Background Only". This will allow you to adjust the brightness of the "background" using the normal exposure compensation button... and modify the exposure of your "subject" using the flash exposure compensation on your flash... giving you total control.

I'll post a few examples of shooting like this in a bit (I'm on my iPad right now)

(oh - one more note: Auto FP only really works with hotshoe mounted flashes like the SB-700, 900, etc.). The built in flash can't do it.

Enjoy!
 
friedmud

friedmud

Senior Member
Here are a couple of photos I recently shot for some friends using a D600, 24-70 f/2.8G, SB-700 using Auto-FP to get good background blur and use the flash for fill.

Note that I wasn't always shooting at f/2.8 because the setting we were in I sometimes wanted hints of what was in the background (like the waterfalls in the river). So I might have shot some at about f/4 or so... just depended on what I was going for. But all of these photos were well above 1/250 and needed Auto-FP

​ DSC_7262.jpgDSC_7346.jpgDSC_7380.jpgDSC_7436.jpg
 
T

tmcguire17

Senior Member
I believe his issue is as he stated "off" camera flash. I may be mistaken but high speed sync only works with sbxxx on camera. Also exposure compensation does squat when your in manual mode.
 
G

Geoffc

Senior Member
friedmud said:
Wow - I'm really surprised that no one has posted the real solution to his initial question!

What you need is "Auto FP" mode (also known as "high speed sync" on other camera systems).

The D600 can only "sync" with a flash up to 1/250. That means that you can only get full flash output up to 1/250... and with the default setting the camera won't go beyond that. If the camera were to try to move the shutter faster than that the flash would be blocked by the moving curtains and provide uneven lighting.

What "Auto FP" allows the flash to do is fire a bunch of times extremely rapidly (essentially providing a constant output for a moment) this gives the camera the chance to blow through a fast shutter speed in the middle of that rapid firing to get the subject evenly illuminated. This allows you to have high shutter speeds (over 1/250) for large aperture shooting in daylight.

Note that this does reduce flash output power... and the faster your shutter is the more the flash power is reduced. When in this mode the flash actually tells you the maximum effective distance right on the LCD... very cool!

I always shoot outdoor portraits this way. Depending on the situation I might tone down the flash a bit so that it looks more natural, but it's a great way to get a bit of fill light to soften facial shadows.

On the D600 you set this up using custom setting e1... just set it to either of the "Auto FP" settings at the top (but why not choose 1/250??). Look around page 234 in the manual.

In addition, I highly recommend decoupling background exposure compensation and flash exposure compensation. Set e4 to "Background Only". This will allow you to adjust the brightness of the "background" using the normal exposure compensation button... and modify the exposure of your "subject" using the flash exposure compensation on your flash... giving you total control.

I'll post a few examples of shooting like this in a bit (I'm on my iPad right now)

(oh - one more note: Auto FP only really works with hotshoe mounted flashes like the SB-700, 900, etc.). The built in flash can't do it.

Enjoy!
Click to expand...

Great explanation. The only comment is that Auto FP works off camera with the pocket wizard mini / flex combo, but this will cost more than the flash.
 
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