by Rolando Gomez
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It’s not uncommon to see beautiful sunset or sunrise photographs, especially today with digital photography being so forgiving in the shadow detail, unlike conventional film. Many people achieve these gorgeous images by shooting automatic, many by luck, and many because they know what they are doing—but not many include people in the foreground for that added extra “human” element, nor do many know the basic rule of this type of photography, “expose your subject with the f/stop and expose your background with the shutter speed.”
Besides not knowing the latter rule, most photographers don’t include people in their sun-rising or setting images because they “pray and spray” fully automatic and the camera’s flash goes off and does one or two things—the first, the camera’s meter is “fooled” by all the darkness and tends to overexpose the individual subject in the image, the second, the camera while on auto sets the aperture and shutter speed too high to offset the power of the flash that lights the subject, thus making for a dull, dark background.
However, if a photographer follows a few simple steps, this won’t be an issue, but before we get into steps, one must learn there is only one sunset, and for that matter, one sunrise each day and to get the best image, you have very little time. Now with digital you can now work fast and verify your image to save on that precious “capture” time—the following images are great examples, but first you must know the working conditions I had to endure for at least the sunset image to understand the whole situation.
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Photograph of Noelia with Olympus E-1 Digital SLR and an Olympus, Zuiko Digital 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 lens, 1/30s @ F/4. One Dyna-Lite Uni400Jr w/Jackrabbitpak battery with a 40-degree grid, 7-inch refelctor, fill light with a California Sunbounce Mini, silver fabric. Camera mounted on a Bogen Monopod. White-balance set at 6000K internally on the E-1 Camera to fool the camera into believing the light was "cool" light, thus the camera compensates by adding "warmth" to the image, causing the beautiful warm tones--changing white-balance is like changing film emulsions in a conventional camera. Location is Cozumel, Mexico. |
Recently while scouting locations in Cozumel for my upcoming week-long, glamour photography workshop in November, I decided to bring along a few models for the sunsets and sunrises—and I only had enough time for one sunrise and two sunsets.
In this first shot I had an idea I wanted to shoot it out at sea, not on the beach. With only about 45 minutes at the most to get this shot off, 3-foot high sea water and rough waves between me and the model, I didn’t have time to use trusty flash meter—instead, I used the LCD preview screen off my Olympus E-1 DSLR camera because I’m familiar with it and I trust it—it’s very important to “learn” your camera and get a “feel” for it’s uniqueness.
I was shooting at the 35mm equivalent of 400mm with my Olympus Zuiko 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 lens so I had an infrared trigger to trip my Dyna-Lite Uni400Jr flash unit powered by their JackRabbit battery pack because of the distance between myself, the model and the light source, as you can see from this quick photo I took of the set-up.
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| Photograph of Noelia, two assistants, and make-up artist, 200 yards from shore. Taken with Olympus E-1 Digital SLR and an Olympus, Zuiko Digital 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 lens, 1/30s @ F/4. One Dyna-Lite Uni400Jr w/Jackrabbitpak battery with a 40-degree grid, 7-inch refelctor, fill light with a California Sunbounce Mini, silver fabric. Camera mounted on a Bogen Monopod. White-balance set at 6000K internally on the E-1 Camera to fool the camera into believing the light was "cool" light, thus the camera compensates by adding "warmth" to the image, causing the beautiful warm tones--changing white-balance is like changing film emulsions in a conventional camera. Location is Cozumel, Mexico. |
I had one assistant holding a California Sunbounce Mini silver reflector and the other one holding the Dyna-Lite Uni400jr so the waves wouldn’t knock it into the water—sea water and sync chords don’t mix, that’s another reason I was triggering remotely. The moral here is I relied on that Olympus E-1 LCD screen because I know it’s dead accurate, and as you can tell from the latter photos, it works, not to mention, I had to hold the camera high to keep salt-water off it, even thought the Olympus E-1 is built rock solid with o-rings, gaskets and more to prevent water damage—and yes, I used a Bogen monopod to support the camera when I was shooting—the trick here is to attach the lens to the monopod so you can rotate for verticals—the Olympus lens comes with the tripod collar making this a breeze.
Now that you know the working conditions, how is the shot done? First, shoot in manual mode. Second, slow your shutter speed down, if you’re shooting digital and trust your LCD panel like I do, you’ll see the results of changing shutter speeds right there. I know, many folks say you’re not supposed to use the LCD for a light meter, but with the Olympus E-1 I can adjust it’s luminance to match the output so it’s accurate, and I do use my light meter when I don’t have 3-foot sea water with rough waves and 100-feet between the model and I. There was no time for a light meter in this scenario, just gut instinct to start off around 1/60 for my shutter and my f/stop at f/4.0 and adjust accordingly—besides, that’s what they make the delete button for to keep those Lexar Media cards fully available.
(If you'd like to join Rolando for one of his upcoming, "Glamour, Beauty & the Nude" workshops, click here.)
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©2004 Rolando Gomez
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