How To Take Outdoor Portraits With Flash

In my previous post 10 Genius Portrait Photography Tips I talked about using off camera flash for better portrait photographyThats why in this post I want to dive deeper into how you can do this in three simple steps.

How to take outdoor portraits with flash. Shooting professional-quality portraits with artificial lighting doesnt have to weigh heavily on your bank account. Take a few pictures for half an hour before sunrise or 30-40 after sunset. Try to use the flash more to fill in shadows and provide just enough illumination on the subject while still retaining the looks of the background and surrounding environment.

Depending on which time of day you are shooting will determine the effects of your lighting and how you can use it to illuminate your subject. Natural Light Photography Fill Flash Diffusers. With the flash transmitter turned off Ill adjust my shutter speed to get the exposure I want for the background.

If shooting without a flashgun take your exposure from your subject. The solution I came up with is amazingly simple and yet surprisingly effective. Natural Light Photography Fill Flash Diffusers - YouTube.

One of the above hot-shoe flash units diffused with an umbrella is fine for outdoor portraits of a person in the shade of if backlit by the sun. You can dial your settings back manually. Eventually I finally figured out a solution that gives me the best of both needs - lots of power for outdoor direct sun portraits and yet a relatively soft look for bare direct flash.

With fill-in flash take your light reading from the background. In this photography class we cover the following. Heres a 22-minute video in which photographer Sean Tucker shares how to.

While you can balance ambient light with light from a flash when working inside this has not been done in any of these portraits. At its best outdoor flash photography will be taken with an off camera flash and diffuser to disperse and soften the light. My first step is to set the camera and the flash to manual mode.