DURING THE summer months, outdoor portraits can be really tricky to get right, as bright direct sunlight can cause all sorts of exposure issues. Most commonly, if your subject is heavily backlit they’ll often come out significantly underexposed, as in the image to the right. The problem is caused because very high-contrast lighting makes life decidedly difficult for your camera’s metering system, which, when in its default multi-segment mode, has to try to balance extreme highlights and shadows in the same frame. If the sun or a very bright sky appear in shot, this will force the camera to reduce the overall exposure, leaving the foreground much too dark.
Light your subject
Fortunately, there is a quick and easy way to get around this problem, and it’s called fill-in flash.…