Capturing the glow of the sun behind the subject

Kimberlypaige

I recently took my mom out for an evening shoot. I wanted to really capture her in the glow of the sun...it did NOT turn out well at all. The sun was amazing, but she was pretty much blacked out, like I didn't use a flash for fill at all. I used my 50mm f/1.8 lens and my 430ex ll flash. What am i doing wrong? Help!! I really love that style and I have a friend who wants maternity photos done outside in a couple weeks. Also, which filter should I be using?

Moose

Howdy @Kimberlypaige - I know the effect you're trying to capture. There are a couple reasons why it didn't turn out well for you. First, I imagine your metering was set to 'Evaluative'. When Evaluative metering is enabled, the T2i tries to correctly expose the entire scene. When the scene is comprised of a really bright object (like the sun), everything else gets underexposed (dark). To remedy this, just enable Spot metering and focus on your subject (Mom). Instead of metering the entire scene, the T2i will meter your Mom's face which is the most important part of the photo. The sun/background will be washed out and if you angle your lens just right, you might even capture a nice lens flare which is I believe the effect you were going for.

Your flash is designed to operate at speeds of 1/200 or slower. When shooting into the sun, the shutter speeds skyrocket, thus minimizing your ability to use flash. As for filters, I really wouldn't recommend any specifically for portraits. If you're capturing landscapes or other non-human subjects, circular polarizers and neutral density filters can come in handy...depending on the effect you're going for. Hope that helps and happy shooting! :)

Kimberlypaige

Thanks so much! Learned a lot from these forums so far. :D