Getting the Best Out of your Outdoor Photoshoots
E aí, guys? My name is Priscila Elias and one of my favourite things in photography is to shoot outdoors. Shooting outdoors can be the easiest or the most challenging situation, depending on a couple of things I will go through today. It is the type of photography I have mostly done in my life and still keep doing it frequently and that is why I decided to share the best tips I have for you to get the best out of your outdoor photoshoots!
Different from shooting indoors, where there is usually a controlled environment, there are always surprises when shooting outdoors! You get to know new places, the place you decided to shoot has gotten a new paint or the landscape is simply different because of the season or because of the weather, there are different people walking by, different lights every minute, things change all the time… that can be great! And that can be awful as well. It depends. But if you memorize the following tips, shooting outdoors will be very much easier for you! Just like me, you will happily expect for surprises to come for your photoshoot.
- Choose the best time
It doesn’t matter how nice or how bad is the location you’re going to shoot, as long as you choose the best time to do that. What I mean is depending on the time of the day and on the season, you will have great or bad light.
If you shoot around noon on a sunny summer day, for example, you will have a very hard light coming from the top that will easily create heavy shadows on your subject.
Of course, as photographers, many times that is all we have and we need to deal with it. In that case, you can use diffusers, reflectors, find shadows, chose creative angles, but you will probably have a harder time to go through this photoshoot than if you plan your it for the beginning or the end of the day, about one to one and a half hours after the sunrise or before sunset, when we have the so-called “golden hour”.
Maybe as a creator, you want to have shadows and hard light. Then it’s fine to shoot when the sun is higher in the sky. But most of the time, the best photos are the ones where you have soft, well-diffused light, especially — but not only — for portraits.
As for cloudy days, then you can usually shoot when the sun is higher, since you will already have the clouds as a natural giant diffuser.
If you have no choice, consider shooting in the shadow or having reflectors and diffusers. Maybe even an external flash to overpower the sun. But I will not go through that today, as it will be easier and more fun if you just follow my tip and choose the best time of the day to shoot.
2. The perfect lens
This tip is valid not only for outdoor photoshoots, but it is extremely important for them also.
Choose the best lens for the type of photoshoot you have in mind.
Usually for my portrait sessions, I take both my 85mm f/1.8 and my 16–35mm f/2.8. That way I can get nice portraits with beautiful bokeh and also cool wide open shots to show the location where I’m shooting.
For weddings, I use at least 3 lenses throughout the day: the 24–70mm f/2.8 for versatility, the 85mm f/1.8 for portraits and the 100mm f/2.8 macro for detail shots of the jewellery, invitation and stuff like that. If I had to have only one lens with me, I would have the 24–70mm f/2.8, for sure, as it is more versatile.
For product photoshoots, I’d go with the 100mm f/2.8 macro.
For landscapes, the 16–35mm f/2.8.
Think about what you are going to shoot and what you want to achieve with your session before the day, then take the lenses you will need for that. It will make the whole difference in terms of results.
3. Find the best light direction
Just as it is important to find the best time of the day for your photoshoot, it is important to find the best light direction during your sessions.
Point your camera to your subject and take a walk around it to see where you will get the best light for your photo. It is important to light your subject’s face, so try to face it in the direction the light hits it beautifully.
If you want softer and more even portraits, find the direction where the light hits the face evenly.
If you want a more dramatic one, put your subject in a 45 degree angle to the main source of light — in this case, the sun — and you will create some interesting shadows to one side of the face, keeping the other well lit.
If you’re not sure how to do this, experiment a little. And if you have no idea of what looks good or not in terms o lighting, as it happened to me when I first started photography, then I suggest you watch this video I did entirely talking about how to find the best light direction, where I will show you some practical examples of me shooting outdoors. It will help you to be able to see what to look after and how to achieve certain results on your photoshoots.
4. Take a reflector with you
You might go out there, find the perfect location but then, in order for you to be able to frame your subject with the background you had in mind, you will have your subject standing in a direction where the light is not so good.
Taking a reflector can help you fix that. It will help you to fill up the shadows by reflecting the light back to your subject.
I don’t often use external flashes to shoot during the day, but sometimes I do, especially when I want to overpower the sun or if I want to shoot in a specific direction that is opposite to the “good light direction”. If you have an external flash, the diffuser can be even more helpful, since you can point your flashlight to it and just use the light reflected by the reflector to lighten your subject in a more diffused, beautiful way.
So if you have a photoshoot where you need to shoot in a specific wall, a specific spot and/or direction, having a strobe or a speedlite and diffusers might also be a good idea. If not, if you can experiment and go with the flow of the light — which is something that happens a lot when I shoot portrait photo tours, for example — a reflector should be more than enough for you.
5. Create bokeh with sunlight
Have the sun behind your subject and shoot through some trees or objects in the background.
This is a tip that did not sound very obvious to me in the beginning because, in my mind, if I needed to find the right light direction and the best one would be to have the light in a 45-degree angle to my subject or even right up in front of the face, then how would my photos look nice if my main light — the sun — was behind my subject?
The fact is, if you choose a good time of the day to shoot, as we talked about before — especially in the beginning and at the end of the day -, and if you have an open field or a well-lit environment in front of your subject, you will possibly have enough light reflecting on your subject’s face to still be able to shoot it against the sun and catch these beautiful bokeh lights as a background.
If that’s not your case, if you don’t have an open field and if you realize you are not being able to light your subject enough when you shoot against the sun, then again, an external flash with a diffuser pointed in a 45-degree angle facing your subject might be all you need to fix that and get both the bokeh and a well-lit subject.
You will definitely get dope results with this tip.
6. Choose the right background
A good background does not always mean having whatever you think is most beautiful in the location in your photo.
Sometimes you see a beautiful building but when you frame your subject in front of it to take your photo, it just does not look nice. That is when you need to keep this tip in mind.
Maybe that building is the nicest thing when you look at it with your eyes, but you have a lens that does not capture it in a nice way. Or maybe you are pointing your camera in the wrong direction or angle.
And how to know what the right direction or angle is? This is when composition is key! It’s 50% of the photo.
Try framing your subject, think of leading lines you could use, place your subject in one of the junctions of the lines from the rule of thirds using the grid on your camera, go up, go down, try different angles and have an open mind to simply change the direction and maybe end up having a background that might be much more interesting in your photo than the original one you had in mind.
If you have some composition rules in mind, you will feel more secure to look for angles and find the sweet spots for your photos! So if what I said here now was not enough for you to understand composition, please check out this video. It will certainly help you out with all the details you need to improve your composition skills.
7. Shoot in RAW
Why would you not take advantage of your camera’s best resolution? The more details your image has when it comes straight from your camera, the more you will be able to manipulate your editing. That is the main reason why you should always shoot in RAW.
If you shoot in small JPEG, for example, you might not be able to spot the differences in your computer screen, but once you start editing and try to bring up your shadows or bring down your highlights, you will quickly notice a huge difference between a JPEG and a RAW file.
The RAW file keeps all the data from your sensor, while the JPEG file processes that data and adapts it according to what your camera believes is best.
The result? If you shoot in JPEG, you will have fewer possibilities of editing, as with very little manipulation, your photo will soon start to lose quality.
It’s like if the image starts “breaking”…
8. Take more photos
The more photos you take, the more are the chances you will end up with amazing shots.
Don’t be afraid of taking some extra shots! It might be what separates a good photo session from an outstanding one!
I hope these tips help you. Thank you so much for reading me. I will see you in the next post!
