Las Vegas Photographers, Red Rock Studios

*this post was previously posted on my old “Tips and Tricks” blog. We are in the process of bringing all content to one place for easy reference, so I apologize if you have seen this before!*

Hey there fellow photogs, aspiring and pro!

I’m super stoked about sharing some tips and tricks I’ve learned over the years. In the end I’ll probably learn more from all of your contributions, but hey… I’m not complaining

Alright… down to business! My first very first Vlog on Overexposuring in portraiture:

*Special thanks to  Daniel Miller of SkyCastle Studio – the greatest up and coming Las Vegas Videographer

For those of you who enjoy reading (or can’t understand my mumbo jumbo on the video, lol), here is a written explanation about my Vlog tutorial:

Basically this tutorial is attempting to explain why I like to overexpose when I’m photographing people.

So first of all, here’s the situation:

• You’re shooting a portrait of an individual (or possibly two or three people)
• You’re shooting in the shade, mid day

The equipment I’m using in this tutorial:

• Canon 5D (oh how I love thee!)
• Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L lens
• Handheld digital light meter (sekonic)
• Silver reflector, and my husband (thanx babe!)

My goal:

• A happy, close up shot of my 5 year old daughter
• To draw attention directly to her eyes

Step 1 -

The first thing I do is set my ISO to 100. I choose this setting first because I want the highest quality image and I know that there is enough available light to pull it off. I also set my white balance to shade, because well… my subject is in the shade!

Step 2-

I choose my aperture. This is my second choice because I am shooting a human being, haha. My goal is to acheive maximum background and foreground blur in this portrait. The only thing I want in tack sharp focus is my subject’s eyes, not the nose or even the ears So my aperture of choice for this shot is f/2.8, as wide open as this lens is capable of.

Step 3 -

I choose my shutter. This number can vary, and I don’t really care what it is as long as it’s atleast 1/60 of a second. And honestly I prefer 1/125 or faster to avoid motion blur… the fact is that I can get excited while shooting which doesn’t make for the steadiest hand, lol. Plus, I’m shooting a toddler and they are notorious for rapid movement! The shutter is my last choice in this situation, and all I’m trying to avoid is motion blur.

* If there was not enough available light to shoot at 1/60 of a second, I would increase my ISO to 200 to fix the problem.

Alright, so how do I know what my shutter should be? I personally love using a hand-held light meter to get started. Using a hand held meter is more accurate than using the meter built into your camera, trust me on this one! And if you want to know why, just ask me (I don’t want to bore all of the non-techy photogs out there!) If you don’t have a handheld meter, use the meter built into your camera. It might work perfectly, or it might fail you a bit… just depends on the situation.

First I tell my light meter that I want to shoot this image at ISO 100 using an aperture of f/2.8. The ever so intelligent technology fills in the blank for me, and tells me that I should use a shutter speed of 1/500 of a second. So, I take the shot:

ISO 100
Aperture f/2.8
Shutter 1/500

So the light meter did an ok job, right? Well the exposure is right on… these things just don’t lie BUT I don’t personally care for it. I think it’s on the dark side and I would really like to draw more attention to the eyes. So my conclusion from experience is to overexpose by one stop. Since I don’t want to change my Aperture or ISO, I’ll let more light in through my shutter by slowing it down to 1/250 second.  And here’s the results:

ISO 100
Aperture f/2.8
Shutter 1/250

I don’t know about you… but I think it looks WAY better!

Well that’s it for todayIf you have any questions don’t be shy!

Mindy Miller
mindy@redrockstudios.com
Las Vegas Photographer