Ben Birk is a talented young photographer from the East Coast. He spends his winters in Tahoe shooting snowboarding and his summers taking pictures of his friends skating, wakeboarding and graduating from college. His work has been featured on ESPN.com/actionsports, Snowboarder.com, and YoBeat.com to name a few and he has one of the best young eyes in action sports photography.


Ben also backs up his instinct and camera pack full of expensive gear with solid technical knowledge of photography. In what is the first of our BNQT.com "How To Tuesdays" series, Ben provides some tips on grabbing the right exposure while your buddies are (hopefully) grabbing that perfect... well, grab.





Balancing Backlighting With Flash
by Ben Birk (BenBirkPhoto.com)


Have you been in a situation where the subject you wanted to shoot was in the shade or had a shadow cast on it, and the background was blown out in your attempt to properly expose your subject?

EXAMPLE



In this post we are going to cover how to make much better photos out of situations like this.

- Equipment needed
- Camera that allows for manual exposure
- Flash (on camera or off camera)
- Light Meter (optional)


Step 1. Camera Settings

First thing to do is make sure your camera is set on manual. We need total control over the cameras shutter speed and f-stop to make a proper exposure. Also make sure your shutter speed is at or under 1/250th of a second because most cameras flash sync speed won’t allow for faster shutter speed when shooting with flash. If you are getting a black band across the bottom of the photo this is because your shutter is closing before all the light can be captured and you need to lower your shutter speed.

Step 2. Background

The next thing we are going to do is set our cameras exposure for the background. If you are shooting digital take some test photos until your background is exposed correctly and you have it looking how you want.

If shooting film I would meter the light and underexpose between 1/3 to a full stop under the settings on the light meter.

For my photo I knew I wanted the background full of color from the green plants and trees in the background. To achieve that look I came up with a shutter speed of 1/90th and an f-stop of 9.5.



Step 3. Flash

Our next step is to set the flash so the subject can be properly exposed. If you do not have a light meter and are shooting digital start taking test photos and lower or power up your flash until the subjects exposure is correct.

If you have a light meter simply meter your light to your exposure settings.



Step 4. Take the photo

Make sure your composition is correct and press the shutter button. If you have done everything right you will have a photo where the subject and background are both exposed correctly and will give you a much better photo then one we started off with.