exposure/heavily backlit subjects on xl1s..

[David J. Payne]

hi,
i have a bit of a newbie question here. What do people recommend I do when filming for example someone standing infront of a large double window with a lot of light getting through. At the moment unless I zoom tight on the persons face and try to block out the light, they are almost in silouette. Is it something to do with the AE Shift? What general settings do other people use for instances like this?
many thanks

[Don Palomaki]

1. Avoid backlighting when you can, unless of course, it is the effect you are seeking.

2. Use fill light to bring out the details in he back lit subjects.

2. Increase exposure until the image details of interest come through to a satisfactory degree.

[Cole McDonald]

1) Fill with a bounce card to bring the light levels up to match the background. a 4x8' piece of foamcore spray painted silver (or wrapped in tinfoil) will work wonders for you. my silver bounce ended up being the most heavily used piece of lighting kit this last weekend on a shoot.

2) Blow the background out and expose for you subject.

3 )move to the side so the window ends up as a side light off camera, this will end up acting as a key light for you.

[David J. Payne]

[QUOTE=Cole McDonald]
2) Blow the background out and expose for you subject.

what exactly do you mean by this?
as it is a wedding we dont normally take our lighting kit with us for things like the ceremony and speeches.. and do not carry a reflector card. i thought there would be something you can do with the camera. someone has suggested the exposure so i'll certainly play around with that

[Cole McDonald]

just raise the exposure (manual exposure/exposure lock) so the subject is correctly exposed and ignore the background, it'll bleed a little around the edges of your subject, but it'll be better than having the subject completely silhouetted.

You could also slap a Polarizer to help control a bit of the edge hazing on your subject...I'd plan on trying to get to the side a bit and see if there's somethig you could frame in the background that is darker. The goal is generally to treat the outside and the subject as separate lighting entities and try to find a way to get them to balance either by bringing up the subject or hiding the bright bits and using them as lighting.

Given time and access, you could put a black silk affixed to the outside of the sindow behind them to bring the outside light levels down artificially ;)

[David J. Payne]

this is excellent, thanks a lot for your help.