I don't know how to shoot outdoors!! please help! !?

[analaura]

I was using a speedlight with a flash diffuser but all of my pictures had an over expose whute sky! I had the flash on ttl mode. I try reducing the flash power with no luck. What am I doinf wrong? I shoot on Av mode. Where should I point my flash to when shooting? Up? Please help!!

 

[fhotoace]

Why are you using a flash during the day?

To use it as flash fill, you need to first set your exposure for the scene.

Usually 1/ISO @ f/16 is correct

When shooting with flash, you also need to make sure that your shutter speed is NOT faster than 1/200th second.

If you set your flash to 1/2 power it will provide excellent flash fill.

If you use the light meter on your camera to determine the proper exposure and then turn on the flash, you should see an improvement.

I use this process for all my outdoor events and it works every time

 

[CCP1]

What are you shooting?
if its a single person in one location use a reflector instead.

if youre moving around take the flash off ttl and set it to 1/2 or lower. Also make sutre your metering is set correctly for what youre shooting

 

[TheLastAnon]

Consider using things in full manual mode so that you have control over the exposures.

The flash should be pointed at your subject. Do you have a subject? Just making a photo of the sky? What are you trying to do exactly?

Normally the aperture controls the depth of field and how bright the light is that falls onto the camera sensor. The shutter controls how long that light falls onto the sensor.

When you use flash, the aperture controls the brightness of the ambient light ( the sun or sky) and it controls the brightness of the flash along with the depth of field.

Now, the flash exposes your subject not the sun and the shutter also controls the brightness of the ambient light (the sun.)

Instead of having only one exposure to worry about you now have 2. One for the subject and one for the background or ambient light. In this case the sky.

So it would be a good idea to set your ISO at say maybe* 200 for broad daylight, the shutter at 125th and make the aperture larger or smaller until the background or the sun is the right brightness. The brightness that you like. No matter how it looks in camera.

Then turn on your flash, and make a photo to see how your subject is exposed. At that point you will have made the sky dark and the subject is lit with flash.

If the exposure on the subject is good then you can use the shutter speed to make the ambient light brighter or darker. You can make them the same brightness so everything is the same or you can make the sky slightly brighter or you can make the sky a lot darker than your subject for more drama.

However most cameras are limited to a certain shutter speed when using flash. It is usually 1/200th of a second or 1/250th of a second and often 1/500th of a second with leaf shutter cameras. Some camera are not restricted. On some cameras you cannot exceed this with flash enabled and on some you can. If you do you will notice a black bar across the phtoto which would be the shutter. You would want to use a slower shutter speed.

What if you have the camera set to 1/200th of a second but the sky is not dark enough? You need to make the aperture smaller because the aperture controls the ambient light too.

However this increases the depth of field, makes the ambient light darker AND forces you to increase the power of the flash because now the flash is getting drowned out by the aperture. The exposure has changed for the flash.

There are times when you are using a small aperture, a fast shutter speed and the sun is too bright. You would either need a lens with a smaller minimum aperture, wait until closer to sunset, shoot in the shade, or get more power from your flash.

There are ways to get faster shutter speeds by forcing the flash to "strobe" multiple times but it will have less power and force you to get closer. It has problems of its own.