Natural Light Photos

gho · Apr 18, 2005

Normally I use flash to help balance out the light when shooting, so I don't get harsh shadows and blown highlights. I decided to do some with natural light.

I don't know if they are any good. What do you all think?
Sissy and Mommy feed the deer at the the San Diego Wild Animal Park:

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New Family Members - My oldest has joined a family of bronze monkeys. She observes the baby with youthful curiosity

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My daughter's so impressed with her toy setup, stops to take a photograph:

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Resting In The Sun Beams

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I think she looks like a Hong Kong supermodel here:

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StuSimmo · Apr 18, 2005

Nice

Very nice Gregory.

Stu

Gale · Apr 18, 2005

Really like the second one GHO.

Little model is adorable.

GeeJay · Apr 18, 2005

You didn't need your flash for these. They are beautiful!

Gaye

mrdinh · Apr 18, 2005

nice pics...well balance light...nature light is better than flash...i don't like flash unless i have to use it

TOLady · Apr 18, 2005

I much prefer natural lighting Gregory, and you've done well. Of course, you do have a very photogenic subject there. I love the intensity in her eyes in the third shot! LOL Looks like we're going to get a new forum member in a while. A very cute little girl and well lit shots.
Cheers, Sandi

Chris101 · Apr 18, 2005

Good job all the way around Gregory! I really like your use of white in #3 and 4. That's the thing I like the best about using sunlight - it's impossible to balance with the shadows, so you are forced to use the white space and you've done so excellently. I'll bet your daughter's photo from #3 is likewise bright.

greyflash · Apr 18, 2005

Excellent use of light here Gregory. Course your daughter is darling as always.

PhotoDawg · Apr 18, 2005

Beautiful shots!!

gho · Apr 18, 2005

StuSimmo: Thanks!

Gale: She told me she wanted to go pet the monkey and then went up and stood there like that waiting for me to take the pic. As soon as I took some pics, she moved to a different postition around the monkey and posed, so I actually have many different shots with her and the monkey. I like that one the best too.

She actually had to wait quite a while (around 10 minutes) as some other kids were playing around with the monkey and were taking photos, but she stood patiently behind the line of fire until the others were done.

GeeJay: Flash would definately have helped with #1. The backlighting is very strong and as a resutl of the subjects being in the shade, the colors are not that great and I had to do heavy shadow enhancement stuff on that photo.

It would have helped with the second one too, and lightened up the shadow.

It's just takes more work to balance out the stobe so that it's not overpowering, and I was just lazy, and also wanted to shoot with bit of lighter gear.

mrdinh: Thanks, well natural light sure is heck of a lot easier to shoot, that's for sure, as you really don't have too much control over the lighting. Flash takes a lot of tweaking to get right, and the flash sync thing is always an issue, especially at ISO200.

TOLady: Thanks. Yes, my daughter is very easy to take photos of, in fact, she enjoys the sessions and often asks daddy for a photo session (like that day).

Chris101: Thanks! Yeah, that's what I find. It actually helps out with really busy backgrounds. The photo my daughter took in that shot is actually very well exposed since she's shooting with the sun behind her. I'll post her photo in this thread for ya to see in a little bit.

greyflash: Thanks! Always easy subjects. I don't know why I can't find more time to photograph them, but I'm working on it.

PhotoDawg: Thanks!

gho · Apr 18, 2005

Here's the photo that she took in #3:

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Chris101 · Apr 18, 2005

Ooh la la! She's a natural!

gho · Apr 18, 2005

Thanks Chris, I'm not sure if you've seen or not, but she's got an entire gallery from the 3 years she's been taking photos:

www.pbase.com/ximina

JerseyJay · Apr 18, 2005

Gregory,

So how did you handle highlights and shadows ? Did you did a lot of post-processing ?

Excellent use of light indeed !.

Bubba · Apr 18, 2005

All of them are great but the last two...oh man. That is one beautiful little girl. I think you did a fine job with those shots!

gho · Apr 19, 2005

Jay Luto said:
Gregory,

So how did you handle highlights and shadows ? Did you did a lot of post-processing ?

Excellent use of light indeed !.

Well, the first one (the one with the deer) I used d-lighting to try to retain some of the highlight info - I don't quite like it. Every time I try to tweak an image in post, the more I tweak the image, the worse it looks to me.

As for the others I just let them blow - post processing was minimal.

gho · Apr 19, 2005

Bubba said:
All of them are great but the last two...oh man. That is one beautiful little girl. I think you did a fine job with those shots!

Thanks!