Beautiful golden hour light is a photographer’s dream. Most of them are light chasers and always choose to shoot straight toward them. Natural backlighting is one of the most favorable times for the photographer to create its magic. We have enlisted 7 special tricks for perfect back lighted pictures in this blog.
Find and Emphasize On Your Focus
If you are working with children, you know they are always on the move and can’t stay still. Instead of losing your cool, make use of back button focus (BBF) in such a situation. This feature helps increasingly while focusing on backlight, and this is of real importance when you want your backlit photos to have sharp focus.
Use spot metering for correct exposure in backlight
It is a key part to have a triumphant shoot in backlighting. You can go for many ways to meter for getting accurate exposure. However, you don’t need to go and check exposure at the back of your camera every time.
If the subject of your work is not stable or is mobile, then you can keep your eye on your viewfinder and make adjustments accordingly. This is very important to understand because if you go for the former approach, there is a chance of losing opportunities to capture the magical moments you dream about.
Shoot in Raw To Make Adjustments In Post
A raw image without any changes or detailing is truly a knight in shining armor that may offer support when all else fails and its chaos all over. The range of a raw file will help you pull back everything, be it the highlights, adjust shadows, exposure etc. No matter how professional you are, there is a chance of messing up, so a file in RAW format instead of JPEG can help you a big deal.
Track Sunrise and Sunset Timings
Back lighted pictures are a favorite when going for outdoor shoots. The best parts of the day are golden hours – sunrise and sunset. Why are they called as such in those hours, perfect golden sunlight pictures come out.
You can also filter the backlight for appropriate backlighted pictures to make it workable, and while outdoors, trees are the best for doing so. Sometimes you may not even have to think that much, and merely crouching in a lower position would work.
Back lighted Pictures and ISO Adjustment
Here is a trick, always set the ISO higher than it needs to be this gives more room with my shutter speed in golden hour sessions.
Back lighted pictures of children or pets, or any moving object is not easy. In such instances, keeping shutter speed faster than 1/300 works really well. By upping the ISO level, adjusting shutter speed for correcting exposure becomes a piece of cake.
Warm Up Your White Balance For Back Lighted Pictures
Everyone is an auto white balance shooter in the beginning but taking images on the warmer side creates creaminess that increases aesthetics. Therefore for back lighted pictures outdoors, shooting at 6800k and adjustment during post-processing is the way to go. Warmer tones flatter more on people more and give them a softer image.
Conclusion
These easy to follow tips for beautiful back lighted photos will come in handy and definitely put your work amongst the top ones. At Karoll’s Photography we aim for perfection and hold expertise in carrying the best photo shoots. Reach out to us for a session at 770 315 2405