Very bright sunlight situations

[pixel_a_ted]

I was in a local park with my camera late afternoon today and there was very bright sunlight, so much so that I had to shield my eyes when walking facing the sun. I pretty much gave up trying to get any nice foliage photos.

There was a wedding going on at the time. Normally, as an amateur, I ask people to move into the shade, but wedding photographers don't always have the luxury of moving people where they want. Even if they could, the way the light was today any local area with shade was punctuated with very bright spots. Not sure that fill flash would be of much help. I was just wondering how they cope with such situations, or do they just accept having photos with blown-out highlights?

Barry

 

[little big man]

You can stop the aperture down, crank up the shutter speed and then use that fill flash to control the light where you want it. If you don't want the extra DOF then use an ND filter and/or get someone out of the frame to hold a scrim to soften the light.

http://strobist.blogspot.com/search?q=balancing

Sean

 

[pixel_a_ted]

Thanks Sean. Are you saying to use aperture/shutter and/or an ND filter to reduce the ambient to a level low enough that the flash will dominate the exposure, thus eliminating harsh bright spots and shadows from the sunlight? Stopping down and using ND will affect the flash output needed. Is there generally enough flash power to do this in very bright sunlight situations?

Barry