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How the hell do you shoot outdoors?
I use speedlights and reflectors and the sun, just figure out what you want and then go for it. Jan 02 13 05:09 pm Link Working to get people who will shoot with you at the time that the sun is in the right place is cheaper than powerful strobes. Even with strobes your photos will be better if taken at the right time. The sand is pretty light colored in ft. Meyers so it will make a pretty good fill. Just don't shoot between 10 and 2 and you will do ok. Shooting a lot with who ever you can, you'll get a lot better pretty quick. You have a good eye and know what your doing, this is less different than you may think. Jan 02 13 05:10 pm Link As many people have already said use your strobe lights outside since you are comfortable with them. Buy a portable battery pack for your strobes. Depending on if you use a softbox, umbrella, beauty dish etc you can get the same studio feel when the sun is not so high in the sky or when in shade. You can also use you strobe(s) as a fill light All of these images are shot with my strobe light     Jan 02 13 05:12 pm Link For the most part all my outdoor stuff is with a monolight or several of them, and occasionally with a reflector or using a 8x8 butterfly with a strobe. I'm always more mindful of the location and where the sun is currently at especially at the beach, even though I'm blowing it away with strobes.  Just with a 300w strobe with a beauty dish Jan 02 13 05:18 pm Link ...grab yourself a shady tree basking in an mid-day sun and place your victim under it and watch the lovely show of subtle shifts in light and shadow. Jan 02 13 05:22 pm Link Oh, also I will be in ft. Meyers beach from January 22nd till the 25th. If you can get a battery for a strobe I would love to show you how I do. (assuming I can line up a model) Jan 02 13 05:31 pm Link Worlds in Digital wrote: Same here. Jan 02 13 05:32 pm Link PIEntertainment wrote: Same here. I love shooting outdoors. Inside is no fun for me. Jan 02 13 05:41 pm Link Something else to think about......... In studio, I can't express how much I love my 85mm. But, I have been griped at more than once, about using it outdoors. I hear things like, "That looks like a fake backdrop." due to the compression of the lens. I have now taken to shooting the 85 in studio, and 50mm or wider outside. Lens choice can make or break you. This shot, was with the nifty fifty, lit with a White Lightning Ultra 1200, topped with a 20 degree grid.  This one, with the 200mm 2.8L no artificial or modified light at all. Just a nice, mostly cloudy, day.  Jan 02 13 05:43 pm Link I do both (in studio and out) but i always use full natural light, so it's something i'm used too. 1- on a sunny day, find shade. use it, don't shoot a model in the sun, or you're going to get shadows under the eyes. 2- reflectors, get used to them. In addition to regular reflectors you can buy- don't forget natural ones. Sunlight bouncing off a wall, the road, the grass, etc. ALL can give the same effect. 3- Cloudy days are your friend. Yes, you can still shoot in the rain- plastic bag over the camera (as long as it's light). Find something/a style of shooting outside that YOU like, though. It is very different than shooting with strobes, etc. To ease yourself in- stay in studio, shot with all natural light instead of strobes if you can manage it (and have enough light). 4- There are people that will very much disagree with me- but don't shoot during the golden hour. it's too gold, and for me it's absolutely BLEH. 5- Go out at all times of the day to shoot, too. Think of it as a challenge. 6- Try backlighting with the sun (especially when you have a reflector that can help light the front of your model) as it gives some lovely effects Jan 02 13 05:43 pm Link SitronStudio wrote: Or if you have a smartphone, there are light meter apps... Jan 02 13 05:48 pm Link You use the same basic knowledge of light and shadow that is used to shoot indoors. Jan 02 13 05:51 pm Link SitronStudio wrote: I've been working on "getting it right" for a year now...and I know what to do...but always seem to get lazy or into a rush and skip steps. Jan 02 13 05:57 pm Link SitronStudio wrote: Okay, here's a bunch of hints: Jan 02 13 08:06 pm Link when i shoot outdoors i don't use artificial light or bring reflectors. i look for the natural light. i like that no matter where i go i can always look for the light, even if i'm not doing a photoshoot. richard avedon would often just sit outside and study the light as it slowly changed. kele, 2012  diana jean, 2012  miharu, 2012  Jan 02 13 08:43 pm Link I see 3 big challenges to working outside 1) Monitoring: Its obviously hard to see your screen outside. This LCD Viewfinder is a great cheap solution and pops easily off the back- http://www.amazon.com/Viewfinder-Magnif … viewfinder 2) Natural Light Control- Sunlight is awesome, but often needs to be controlled to give the desired results. Having the model at the edge of a shady area is often desirable, and if you can't find it naturally at your location, you may want an assistant and a scrim or sunbuster. 3) Artificial Light Control - Strobes are great but normally limited for outside use by camera synch speed to 1/200th with limits aperture choices. Canon and Nikon have wireless eTTL systems with High Speed Synch for flashes, or you can use special wirelss triggers that support HSS such as PocketWizard. The AB Vagabond Mini is a great cheap power pack for any brand of strobes. Jan 02 13 10:01 pm Link You just go do it, man... set yourself free. I've not read the entire thread, but am amused by all of the advice about taking flashes and umbrellas and other flotsam and jetsam out there. That's why you want to get out of the studio, isn't it, to leave all of that crap behind? Get out there early or late, sleep or work out or edit images in the middle of the day. Or better yet, shoot indoors using only soft, sweet window light in the middle of the day. I had a speedlight and used it very sparingly, really only when the sun was in the direct background. Did get a few cool images with it, but when it died, I was done with it; there are only a few relatively old images with it left in my port. Get to know locations and what light they will bring at different times of day; bounce the sunlight off of landforms or buildings. Go out there and play, learn to see the light and manage backgrounds, make a lot of mistakes and learn how to avoid them... Jan 02 13 10:18 pm Link SitronStudio wrote: What on earth are you doing with your monitor outside? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you here, but I'm imagining a computer monitor. There's no need to tether your camera when you're outside. If you're talking about the screen on your camera (unless yours doesn't have one, which would surprise me) just put your back to the sun and look at it in your shadow, or get a shade for it. Jan 02 13 10:48 pm Link Mark Laubenheimer wrote: Really? Jan 02 13 10:59 pm Link What's the big mystery about shooting outdoors? Take your camera, go outside, take a bunch of pictures and try to learn from your mistakes ! KM Jan 02 13 11:08 pm Link Illuminate wrote: ...oh my little Padawan, nothing to give but a lot we have to say.... Jan 02 13 11:09 pm Link Think of the outdoors as a really big studio, and you have one bright light, the sun, that you cannot move around, but you can move everything around it. Use the sun as fill, use the sun as a backlight, use the sun as a rim light. Set up a screen to soften the sunlight or use it hard. I've seen folks use nothing but reflectors with that one light source, and I've seen some over power the sun with their multiple strobes. Another way to look at the sun is you adjust its power using your shutter speed while adjusting the power of your strobes using the f-stop/ISO. Jan 02 13 11:16 pm Link i dont understand... shooting outside is easy like many people have said its the same as shooting in studio if you actually thought about how light works you'll see that the sun is another lightsource you need to figure out and go from there Jan 02 13 11:23 pm Link Maybe I'm the weird one but I really enjoy shooting outdoors after the sun goes down. Twilight is my favorite time and night time is like having a giant studio with a black background...or with cool colorful lights in the background. A tripod, a couple light stands, and speed lights along with city lighting is a lot of fun for me. Jan 02 13 11:23 pm Link I'd say you and I should or have to jump out of our comfort zone. I have been doing this too slowly, using daylight in studio so not really going outside. Last spring I went to Toronto, so no studio, not much equipment. You can see those in my portfolio, completely different. It's too cold ( my excuse) now to do outdoors here without clothes. I did buy a portable flash ( used Broncolor Mobil A2r ). No doubt I'll love it when I force myself to get outside and enjoy what is possibly the best experience I've been hiding from. One example:  Jan 02 13 11:38 pm Link Sand Angel Photography wrote: Ooh, that sounds fun. I want to try that with some B&W film sometime. Jan 02 13 11:43 pm Link How the hell do you shoot outdoors? This is an EXTREMELY difficult mission... HOWEVER... I going to be generous enough to provide you with a step by step guideline enabling you to accomplish this task. 1. Get outta bed, get dressed and pickup your camera. 2. March down the stairs and head to the front door. 3. Open the door, step outside and look in all directions. 4. No rain?... no driveby shooters?... no Homeland Security freaks?... good... YOU'RE SAFE! 5. Turn camera on... switch to the P (for professional) mode... push down shutter button. 6. Mission accomplished...   Jan 02 13 11:51 pm Link Select Models wrote: I can't help but laugh/cry/roll on the floor every time I hear "P for Professional." Jan 02 13 11:52 pm Link Select llamas wrote: What? No gratuitous examples?! Jan 02 13 11:55 pm Link Caveman Creations wrote: OPPS... far be it for me to dissapoint you there... 'mission accomplished' on that task too amigo... and here's another... Jan 02 13 11:57 pm Link The first thing is to figure out what kind of outdoor shooting you want to do. For some people in this thread, outdoors means overcoming the sun or sky or lack of light. For others, it's about embracing the elements. What I'd suggest is first just taking a walk around the neighborhood. Take pictures of things that interest you. Don't even try to shoot people at first. Once you get a feel for how those lighting situations work on things, you can start extrapolating to people. For the past few years, nearly all my stuff was shot indoors, but I was living in Ohio and it was cold. Also, the neighbors didn't like naked girls running around.  Shot of Elkie Cooper standing in a barn doorway, shot on high-speed Fuji film, using Sima soft focus lens.  Man walking through alley, shot with Nikon F and 105mm on Tri-X. Grab shot because he and I were moving about 90 degrees to one another. He just popped into the light and I fired off two quick frames. (No motor. It was the 1970s.) http://www.impactfolios.com/femmefete/media/dee324.jpg 18+ Bondage shot of Sister Dee, in open shade, with a bit of light filtering through the leaves. Anyway, you can get any mood, feel or texture outdoors that you can in. First thing is to figure out what the ambient light is doing. After you have a good feel for that, you can add flash, gobos, scrims, reflectors or whatever else you like. It's hard to drop the extra gear and shoot just with the camera and what's there after you've been controlling it all. Outdoors, it's a matter of finding your light, modifying it if needed and capturing the moment. Jan 03 13 12:08 am Link SitronStudio wrote: SitronStudio wrote: SitronStudio wrote: SitronStudio wrote: Change the way you think Jan 03 13 12:09 am Link Try shoot outdoor wifout flashes. use the available lights u have in the sence. sunlight, reflection lights of color windows. night shoot wif street lights. they are all fun to shoot. Know your white balance will help! keep shooting and u will get a hand on it!  Jan 03 13 12:15 am Link Select Models wrote:
Jan 03 13 12:19 am Link Loki Studio wrote: I have shoot photos outside and don't find it to be challenging. I photographed models in the desert in November. Jan 03 13 02:00 am Link Jerry Nemeth wrote: Be careful not to overwhelm us with helpful and educational information. Jan 03 13 02:16 am Link MarcMarayag wrote: Yes, shooting outside is easy when you know how to shoot outside. Jan 03 13 02:46 am Link i dont use off camera lighting unless i reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally have to. 99% of my port is natural light Jan 03 13 02:50 am Link +1 on the white sand. Everybody who's anybody in my hometown has their family portraits taken in Destin just after sunset. The white fill from the beach is lovely. Here's the Mrs.  Here are my "model parents" down the road in Grayton beach. I put a cto gel on the hotshoe mounted flash. To lazy for modifiers and triggers and such, it was vacation.  Jan 03 13 03:00 am Link I love shooting outdoors for the beauty of it. I use Alienbees with a DIY power pack, but recently have been using just speedlites. The natural light here in Barbados though is harder than the US though  Jan 03 13 03:01 am Link |
