[baldeagle21b]

When shooting florals. for instance outdoors, I generally prefer indirect light or an overcast day in order to avoid harsh shadows. But what do you use if you are faced with a bright cloudless day? Do those flexible folding opaque disks work well as a sunlight diffusers?

[Duh_Vinci]

...Do those flexible folding opaque disks work well as a sunlight diffusers?

Yes, those white diffusers do work well. I've even used (don't laugh) an old white thin cotton t-shirt (one layer) stretched over a wire hanger to diffuse the light while back

Regards,
D

[little laker]

2 things that I do.

1 crank up the F-stop to handle the situation.

2, shoot in RAW and process images.

I've also combined 2 or more images into 1 to make the nicest image possible.

[muustuus]

You could also try setting up some reflectors. Foil works for this pretty good. :P Also an assistant is handy for that job, so that wind doesn't catch on them too much.

-muusi-

[Entropy]

Strobist: Lighting 101: Cross Lighting

Off-camera flash + lightstand = lots of flexibility.

This picture was taken with full sunlight behind me to to the right of the camera.

[pixelpruner]

wear sunglasses.

sorry i couldnt be more helpful

[PDL]

I know of one photographer who carries a cheap white umbrella with him so he can screen off flowers. He also carries a piece of black cloth to put behind the flowers to blot out the background.

The use of things like t-shirts thin pieces of cloth are heavy duty scrims – check out B&H
scrims
Scrims are essentially screens that come in colors and f stop densities. I have seen some places on the web where home made scrims are made out of window screen, stockings, nylon mesh and such. There are portable ones too. Sort of a ND filter for direct sunlight.

PDL

[NaClH2O]

When shooting florals. for instance outdoors, I generally prefer indirect light or an overcast day in order to avoid harsh shadows. But what do you use if you are faced with a bright cloudless day? Do those flexible folding opaque disks work well as a sunlight diffusers?

They do, but then you need to either hold them or somehow fix them in place. An umbrella is nice but same problem. Unless you have the luxury of an assistant, the easiest way I've found to deal with harsh sunlight w/o carrying around a bunch MORE stuff is simply crank up the ev to + .5 or more. The harsher the sunlight the higher the EV. Also shoot in raw as, as that makes it easier to fiddle with the results. I've got enough to carry around, and I'm always losing those stupid folding disks.

NaCl(the less other gear I carry the more lenses I can put in my bag)H2O

[janver]

Strobist: Lighting 101: Cross Lighting

Off-camera flash + lightstand = lots of flexibility.

This picture was taken with full sunlight behind me to to the right of the camera.

I am sorry to differ on the picture shown here as a good example on how to deal with harsh sunlight. That's what it is meant to be, right?

Seems quite obvious that the flashing causes some kind of facial deformation here. Fill in flash looks way to hard and causes new shadows, opposite to the direction of the sun, which is definitely unnatural. I think lighting up shadows is OK, whiping them out isn't.

Jan V.

[Entropy]

It isn't the best example - I didn't quite get the balance correct.

It's better than on-camera fill flash though, and it's better than squinting (sun in front of subject). I didn't have a chance to try a diffuser or umbrella, which would have improved things. Originally I thought I was too borderline as far as my flash's ability to overpower daylight, but in retrospect I could have moved the flash closer and added an umbrella without it being in the frame. It's really hard to get exposure and composition correct when the subject is yourself and you're using the camera's timer.

The Strobist link has a much better example, but that was taken by a pro (DH was a staff photographer for the Baltimore Sun before taking leave to run Strobist full time and spend time with his family.) as opposed to a noob trying to take a picture of himself.

[jeff1101]

I thought it was pretty good. The sun was bright and you tried not too hide that fact but still got a good picture (under the circumstances). I like it.

[d.bradley]

Here's a little lighting 101 from a cinematographer's perspective.

I have to disagree with this who are suggesting crank the EV or turn up the f-stop. In experience as a cinematographer on a number of films, on set you have to be totally in control your of your lighting, both natural and artificial.

There are four main aspects of lighting that you look at, and adjusting exposure only takes the one into account. Light has quantity, quality and colour/temperature and direction.

Quantity is obviously the intensity, and will influence exposure of your subject, and your subject relative to the your background and environment. Quantity of light obviously affects aperture and shutter speeds, and may limit focal length, depth of field, and so on depending on the conditions. But adjusting how much light you let into your recording device is like clearing a table with a baseball bat...it's indescriminate, and while it solves one problem it creates others.

Quality of light is whether the lighting is harsh and direct, or soft and diffused. Are the rays of light coming in from a single vector, or are they being reflected and refracted to come from many different angles? A mirror reflects light without diffraction, while white objects do the opposit, so as reflectors they will create very different results. If you're worried about the quality of the light (and consequently the shadows) on your subject, diffusing is the way to go. Adjusting EV and shooting RAW will help you to expose your subject properly, but does nothing to affect the quality of the light and the shadows. There is a reason HDR processing often looks unnatural!

The colour temperature / hue most often comes into play with regards to white balance, and when you're mixing natural and artificial light sources. A tricky situation.

Direction, for the most part, speaks for itself. In film, high-key lighting is light that comes from a source that is near the camera and creates a flat, evenly lit subject, but may cast shadows behind said subject. See the on board flash for examples. Low-key lighting, lighting from the sides, creates shadows across a subject which emphasizing features but is often 'uneven' if there is only a single light source. Afternoon sun light from the side us usually less than falttering. Back light, rim lighting, catching lighting, 'kickers'....I could go on and on.

Lets take the example of the fill flash used here. It's a perfect learning example. What we have is warm (temperature) direct (quality), bright (quantity) light coming from the right, slightly above and behind the subject (direction). It's low-key, almost rim lighting at this angle. This light casts a shadow over the subject's face, and down his front and shirt.

In compensation, we have setup a flash gun somewhere to the left at about face level if I am correct. This light is slightly cooler (temperature), direct (quality) bright (quantity) low-key (direction) light source, and so it is casting shadows and picking up features in the opposite direction.

Results:

Quantity: The shot is properly exposed. The background and subject are both exposed properly without losing highlight or shadow detail.

Quality: Since the lighting is direct and non-diffuse, shadows will appear harsh, with defined lines between light and dark areas. The effects of this will be most relevant to the direction of the light.


Temperature: The flash is slightly cooler than this slight afternoon sunshine, and this leads to a pale washed out look relative to the lush greens being exposed by sunlight alone. It's what's called a mixed lighting situation. Our eyes and brains deal with it well, but our cameras don't. The white balance can do so much, but with different colour temperatures you're looking at either making your flash look blue (as here) or if let your set the WB so your flash looks warmer, the sun light becomes much more orange. Either way, it tends to look somewhat unnatural.

Direction: There are a lot of shadows being cast since there are two low-key lights in this situation. As a result we pick up the wrinkles in the shirt, get shadows in the sleeves and under the arms, and dark areas from the flash along the right side his face from the nose. Again, since the light is not very diffused shadows are harsh and very visible.

What's the solution? It depends. Shooting outdoors it tough. You can use a lot of things to help you control the four aspects of lighting. For a small flower, or bug it could be as simple as carrying a piece of parchment or waxed paper, a white tee-shirt, or anything that will diffuse the light. The folding discs are great as diffusers and you can or reflectors. Look at these and think about how they will affect the light...gold reflectors give that warm, diffuse glow at the beach, for example. Remember too in diffusing light you lose quantity so that macro shot may lose some DOF due to a larger aperture. Fill flash has to be controlled like any other light, which is why macro lighting setups are so flexible. Perhaps someone here could point the OP to some macro lighting examples (photos of a setup?).

As the subject gets larger (read: People!) things get more complicated.

Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Damian

[carpents]

They do, but then you need to either hold them or somehow fix them in place. An umbrella is nice but same problem. Unless you have the luxury of an assistant, the easiest way I've found to deal with harsh sunlight w/o carrying around a bunch MORE stuff is simply crank up the ev to + .5 or more. The harsher the sunlight the higher the EV. Also shoot in raw as, as that makes it easier to fiddle with the results. I've got enough to carry around, and I'm always losing those stupid folding disks.

NaCl(the less other gear I carry the more lenses I can put in my bag)H2O

But the problem with just cranking out directly-lit florals has more to do with harsh shadows than exposure trickery. Granted, sometimes the shadow makes the shot worthwhile, but most times a softer light is preferred.

I use thin clear plastic sheets (originally a cutting surface), I'm sure you could velcro them to your flash if you don't have an assistant.


One other idea - go for the backlit shots. You know, the cliche shadow-of-the-bug-crawling-on-the-flower-petal shot.

[carpents]

Here's a little lighting 101 from a cinematographer's perspective.

What great advice. I said the same thing, only much less eloquently and even less detailed.

[GaryML]

I have to disagree with this who are suggesting crank the EV or turn up the f-stop. In experience as a cinematographer on a number of films, on set you have to be totally in control your of your lighting, both natural and artificial.

There are four main aspects of lighting that you look at, and adjusting exposure only takes the one into account. Light has quantity, quality and colour/temperature and direction.

An excellent explanation of the basics of lighting. In particular, a great explanation of why fill flash gives artificial-looking results, even when exposure is correct from light to dark areas. A white reflector will give a more even match of color temperature, but you still need to think about direction and shadows.

Still photography is a bit different than motion pictures since you have the option of long exposures (with stationary subjects). So you can reduce the quantity of light with a still subject (e.g., flower close-up) and still keep a small aperture and low ISO by going with a 2 or 3 second exposure.