I need to get better at Portrait Photography, Help!

[compuwar]

You seem to be really on the right track in your efforts to deliver a nice image with a person as the subject. Perhaps you should consider the following -

Grey Card and a simple colour check card

These are lost in the sea of information. A grey card will solve your metering issues. A color checker card is a luxury unless you're shooting something where colors need to be spot on, but a grey card is essential, given that you're trying to meter off the subject who isn't grey.

Paul

 

[phrehdd]

These are lost in the sea of information. A grey card will solve your metering issues. A color checker card is a luxury unless you're shooting something where colors need to be spot on, but a grey card is essential, given that you're trying to meter off the subject who isn't grey.

Paul

We concur that a simple photo grey card is a great tool. I believe also that for many, a simple colour card is an excellent tool when used in a couple of situations not always associated with colour card usage - shooting an image that has the subject in a shadow area to help adjust for some facets of colour bias (within the shadow) and finding the appropriate compromise between balance colours and flesh tones in similar lighting as mentioned. However, again we'll agree the grey card is far more useful and some folks can do the same colour balance checking when using just the grey card to get a starting point in post processing.

 

[VI™]

This should shed some light on how to correct the problem!
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html

 

[cupcakes2000]

I seriously think that all you need to do is get to grips with spot metering.

Dont worry about anything other than correctly exposing for the face using your in camera spot meter.

Over exposure of other areas can be beneficial.

 

[VI™]

I seriously think that all you need to do is get to grips with spot metering.

Dont worry about anything other than correctly exposing for the face using your in camera spot meter.

Over exposure of other areas can be beneficial.

[url=https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7418/14091101164_599d21e4be_n.jpg]Image[/url]

Maybe in certain circumstances, but when you have such a wide dynamic range as a shaded area vs a cloudless sky, the blown out look is generally undesirable.

 

[phrehdd]

I'll be a bit more direct here -

As some have pointed out that light is everything and in photography of this sort, one learns to "paint with light."

Some of the shots might require re-orienting the location of the camera and possibly a different crop. Some items in the background are not advantageous to what you are trying to accomplish (the blue trash can(?) etc.)

Shooting in the shade for more defused light is a good notion but you see it has drawbacks if areas outside of the shade is also in the image. In this situation a reflector or some fill light (yes flash) is a viable option to give a flattering exposure and less distraction caused by what some are calling blown out areas of the image.

The genre of "portrait" photography means different things to different people and some prefer natural light, others prefer control via studio lighting and some fall somewhere between the two and consider what is available as well as what brings the best advantage to shooting the subject. Often, the most difficult is "environmental portraits" where the background does matter and your images seem to fall into that category given the amount of the image is devoted to inclusion of background rather than a tighter shot of the subject. I'll advise again if you like to include background you should opt to see what is there and if it is distracting in any way. At least 3 shots have less than ideal items in the background. Please understand, I am not being negative but trying to lend some food for thought here. You seem to be on the right track and I'll just end with saying as others have told you - learn about lighting whether by book/Internet or class et cetera.

 

[VI™]

Learning how to use lighting and modifiers correctly will let you do anything from natural looking photos to photographs that are just out of this world and generally a lot of the people that say they only like natural like don't know how to properly light. If you know how to properly light, you should be able to set up your lights so that a person couldn't tell that flash was used. This lets you shoot anything anywhere instead of being at the mercy of the sun and weather. With that being said, you don't always have to use a flash in your photos, just know how so that when natural light just won't do, you can break out a flash and get that perfect photo.

These were taken with a combination of natural light, ambient, "studio strobes", and small speedlights.

 

[cupcakes2000]

Learning how to use lighting and modifiers correctly will let you do anything from natural looking photos to photographs that are just out of this world and generally a lot of the people that say they only like natural like don't know how to properly light. If you know how to properly light, you should be able to set up your lights so that a person couldn't tell that flash was used. This lets you shoot anything anywhere instead of being at the mercy of the sun and weather. With that being said, you don't always have to use a flash in your photos, just know how so that when natural light just won't do, you can break out a flash and get that perfect photo.

These were taken with a combination of natural light, ambient, "studio strobes", and small speedlights.

Image

Image

Image

Although you make a good point here, you can in fact, with all three examples, tell a flash was used. Not deterring from the obviously great images you have here.. but you can tell they are lit with artificial lighting.

OP:
You can use natural light and a spot meter in almost all conditions, following the same idea that VI™ suggested in their post here. Learning how to use the light correctly is the basis of any good photography, artificial light aside.

Google a guy called Cliff Maunter. He is a wedding photographer, he has some great ideas about dealing with difficult natural lighting.

 

[Hesse]

If spot metering isn't working for you than switch to matrix metering and play with exposure compensation until you get the settings your looking for. If you want to use the flash it could be a lot easier to figure out your settings first in aperture mode and then copy them over to manual. For instance you could use aperture mode to figure out your exposure for the scene and then copy those settings to manual and set the flash to ttl. The flash too has exposure compensation so you can adjust your models exposure with that. A few problems you will run into though are the HSS problems you've mentioned, flash has less power at those speeds, and also the fact that in such bright light using such a low ISO of only 100 your flash has very little power. If possible find some shade so you can use a shutter speed like 200 that won't make it so hard to use your flash. I think the real problem is just that you need to find better light as has been mentioned. Trying to compensate for intense bright light outside with flash is complicated and expensive ( not really done with one speed light ) keep shooting and you will find that you take great pictures sometimes, then figure out how to seek out those situations again and start to learn when and where you can take great photo's.

 

[VI™]

If spot metering isn't working for you than switch to matrix metering and play with exposure compensation until you get the settings your looking for. If you want to use the flash it could be a lot easier to figure out your settings first in aperture mode and then copy them over to manual. For instance you could use aperture mode to figure out your exposure for the scene and then copy those settings to manual and set the flash to ttl. The flash too has exposure compensation so you can adjust your models exposure with that. A few problems you will run into though are the HSS problems you've mentioned, flash has less power at those speeds, and also the fact that in such bright light using such a low ISO of only 100 your flash has very little power. If possible find some shade so you can use a shutter speed like 200 that won't make it so hard to use your flash. I think the real problem is just that you need to find better light as has been mentioned. Trying to compensate for intense bright light outside with flash is complicated and expensive ( not really done with one speed light ) keep shooting and you will find that you take great pictures sometimes, then figure out how to seek out those situations again and start to learn when and where you can take great photo's.

HSS compensates by allowing you to use a fast enough shutter to kill the ambient. Your batteries will drain quicker though, but power shouldn't be an issue using HSS to shoot one person in daylight. A camera with a shutter that would allow you to shoot at a much faster maximum shutter speed without using some sort of HSS is also an solution. I think the old Nikons like the D40 and D70 would do it.