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How light and camera settings influence outdoor photos
Taking good outdoor photos of people requires an understanding of light and camera settings, among other factors.
With today's digital cameras, even fairly basic models offer different settings and selections. The best way to improve at taking good outdoor photos of people is to read your camera's manual and experiment. But starting off with an understanding of a few key factors and settings will help you make more sense of the process.
How Light Affects Photos
"The biggest
difference between indoor and outdoor photos is the quality of the light,"
said Melissa Wilson of Melissa Koren
Photography. "There's very little that beats natural light."
But sunlight can also
create problems when you want to take good outdoor photos of people. "I
remember the first wedding I shot was in a solarium, and it was a
quintessentially 'partly cloudy' day," Wilson said. "Beautiful, puffy
cotton-ball clouds littered the sky--and blocked the sun. One shot was
bright, the next dark. I had to compensate by setting the camera to maintain a
certain brightness level in AV, but even that isn't an exact science. I
shoot 99 percent of the time in Full Manual now so I can compensate as I go."
You may think, then,
that shooting outdoor photos of people would work better in full sunlight. The
problem with this approach is that full sunlight that can cause bright colors
to look washed out and dark areas or shadows to intensify. The result is a
harsh look. (See the Fine Gardening article at the end for comparisons of the
same outdoor shot in different light conditions.)
To adjust to natural
light when you're taking outdoor photos of people, you need to understand some
camera settings.
ISO
"Understanding
ISO and its effect on shutter speed is the first place to start," Wilson
said. One of her favorite sites when she was first learning was Pioneer
Woman Photography.
ISO is expressed in a
number, and it relates sensitivity to light. You should generally use the
lowest ISO you can because the higher numbers result in grainier images. The
more light you have, the lower the ISO you need. As you can see, the time of
day and the weather conditions will help you determine what ISO you need when
you're trying to take good outdoor photos of people.
Your ISO setting also
affects the shutter speed and aperture you can use.
Shutter Speed
"For one or two subjects, I shoot handheld,
with as fast a shutter speed as I can manage and
a very shallow depth of field," said Greg Abell of Abell Photography. "The fast shutter speed gets you sharpness,
the shallow depth of field gets you pleasing bokeh, both of which are essential
elements to a good shot, in my opinion."
Bokeh is the blur
in out-of-focus areas. In contrast, the depth of field is the sharply focused
area. Have you ever seen outdoor photos of people where the people appeared
sharp and crisp, but the background was blurred? This can draw attention to the
subject of the photo or prevent distraction from the background.
Shutter speed is
measured in fractions of a second. The bigger the number after the slash, the
faster the speed. Faster shutter speeds prevent blurry images, either from your
unsteady hands or the subject's motion. However, increasing your shutter speed
also allows less light into your camera, so you may need to increase the
aperture or the ISO to make up the difference.
Aperture
"If you are
photographing a group, use a tripod. This is the best way to get a good, sharp
portrait," Abell said. "Use a smaller aperture to ensure sufficient depth of field, but don't go overboard."
Aperture is the lens opening
that admits light. It plays hand-in-hand with the depth of field, or the
focused area in your image. A larger depth of field means the subject and
background will both be in focus. A shallow depth of field means the subject
will be in focus, but the background will be blurred.
If you want to keep
the surroundings from overwhelming the subjects in your outdoor photos of
people, you must select the appropriate depth of field. "For the least sharp background, use the
longest lens you have and shoot wide open," Abell said. "When I use a
300mm, I use it wide open at f/4 (I have the inexpensive version of this lens),
and it works well with a single person."
What if the
background is important to the picture? "If you want to include the
background more, you can use a wider lens (shorter focal length) or use a
smaller aperture, or both," Abell said.
Practicing
As with other skills,
taking good outdoor photos of people also requires practice. "Every shot I
compose (hopefully) tells a story," Wilson said. "I'd love to say
that every part of every shot is on purpose, but in general I photograph 'in
the moment.' Sometimes it's not until I get home and start to cull through
the photos and do my edits that I fully see the background as it is."
References:
Jake Miller, "Take
Photos that Look as Good as Your Garden," Fine Gardening
Darren Rowse, "Learning
about Exposure--The Exposure Triangle," Digital Photography School