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Photography Question 

Ewurama Hayford
 

Photographing Silhouettes & Using Fill Flash


Hi,
I'd like to know how to take silhouette pictures: Does the sun have to be behind the subject? Should it be at a particular time of day, or can it be any time at all? Also, what does fill flash mean? Do I need special flash to do this, or can I use the built-in strobe in my camera? I find the camera's flash to be quite harsh. Thank you!!


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February 14, 2006

 

robert G. Fately
  A silhouette is simply an image where the foreground subject detail is lost in favor of the background lighting being properly exposed. That is, if the sky in the background is bright, and you position yourself in such a way that your subject is in its own shadow, you will get a silhouette. This is because, compared to our eyes, film (and CCD chips) have a limited dynamic range - the difference of the brightest and darkest things they can record is far less than the brightest and darkest things we can see visually.
Think of taking a picture at the beach... you can see your friend clearly even with the sun at her back, as well as make out the wispy clouds in the sky. But a camera can either expose the sky properly (where the person will be blacked out) or else expose the subject properly (where the sky behind will be "blown out" - that is, turn completely white.)
So the answer is: You don't have to have the sun itself behind the subject - you just need to have any very bright background behind the subject and have the camera meter expose the background properly.
Fill flash, then, is what it's called when you have that friend on the beach and use the flash, even though it seems far too bright to need a flash. What the flash unit provides is extra light to reflect off the subject, to bring the subject more in line with the light coming from the sky behind. If the subject is not too far away, your built-in flash can be fine.
Hope that helps.


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February 14, 2006

 

Maria Melnyk
  You don't need fill flash for silhouettes because then you wouldn't have a silhouette. Usually I try to have about 5 stops difference between the background and the subject to get a good silhouette. The best times of day are early morning or evening when the sun is low in the sky; then you won't have as much sunlight lighting up your subject from the front where you don't want it.


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February 15, 2006

 

Rebecca A. Steed
 
 
 

Rebecca A. Steed

 
 
Hi again Ewurama. To get a silhouette, the light should come from behind the subject. If you can manually expose your camera, take a light meter reading off the sky. This will cause your subject to be dark. Hope this helps. Here is a sample. I metered off the background.


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February 15, 2006

 
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