How to balance the light in outdoor portrait

Balancing the light in photographs when you’re outdoors can be really tough. This is when having a little bit of camera equipment can come in really handy. To achieve the ‘Epic Photo’ look, you will need a Speedlight and a Light Reflector.

Normally when you shoot outdoors on a bright day, you can usually get a well-exposed subject in your photograph, but the sky will end up over-exposed:

When you adjust your camera settings (smaller aperture or faster shutter speed) then you end up with a well-exposed sky but your subject is too dark. This is where having equipment comes in handy. You want to be able to balance the light to have a well-exposed background AND a well-exposed subject.

To properly balance the light when outdoors and achieve the epic shot, use the same settings as you did to get the sky well-exposed, then add a Speedlight and use a light reflector to light your subject. If you do this you will achieve perfectly balanced light in the background and the foreground of your portrait. Epic, indeed!

I’d like to give a ‘shout-out’ to my pal, Aidan Griener, who willingly modeled for this Epic Portrait experiment.

To learn more about balancing the light in your photography, visit Caryn Esplin’s website: Balance the Light