Hi Emily, et al. I have had to do fashion shoots and small portrait/beauty work out in the woods, and the difference in light intensity betwen the sunlight and open shade is pretty big. If you use a flash to raise the shade light to a closer level to the sunlight, you also risk infecting the scene with double shadows. There are a few ways around this. 1. Use a ringlight. One of the nicest things about these contraptions is the absolute-direct light you get from them. 2. Match the power of the sunlight with a speedlight. Set your on-camera flash to full-power, and meter the flash output at the subject. Ideally you'll get something like f/22 or f/16... in that range. Set your camera's aperture at that setting, then set your shutter speed twice as fast as what you would be shooting without the flash. This makes the flash output record at a 1:1 ratio with the sunlight. Of course, you can slow down or speed up the shutter in order to modify this ratio a bit. You can even overpower the sun so that the entire area outside of your flash cone goes dark. Interesting effect if used wisely. 3. Use a large white card/reflector with or without flash to bring the shadow areas up. 4. Wait for a partly-cloudy day... this will provide you with changing intensities of sunlight. I hope this helps; I'm sure there are other methods as well, but these are the first ones I'd try... Good luck, Emily! Darin Heinz Melbourne, Florida USA
