The first thing I do when someone asks me to take their group picture at a party is to move them into a spot with good lighting . I don't know what it is with people , but we seem to gravitate towards standing in front of windows thinking : " oh , how wonderful we will get the nice view in the picture ". I hate to be the one to break the news , but no , that is not what will happen .


Here is what happens : with the camera set to default metering it looks at the entire scene with the darker foreground ( the subject ) and the lighter background ( the window ) and sets the exposure to even it all out at a 18 % grey . The result is a photo where nothing really works , and the result is as you see it with a too dark foreground and too light background .

There are two work-arounds for this ( well , three if you count using flash , but we will cover that in another post ). Either set you camera to spot meter or simply ( the option I mostly choose ) ask the group to turn around and face the light .

↑ Spot metering ( with explanation . Source : Nikon D700 manual ). Spot metering really doesn't get it completely right either , but is a lot better than the default metered photo .

↑ Turning around and facing the beautiful , natural window light . Thank you to the bouquet for kindly letting me take its picture .

Clearly the natural window light wins . This is the kind of lighting that photographers dream of . Because it's not always around ( nor practical to use in all situations ), we buy all sorts of expensive and elaborate lighting equipment to emulate it . But the natural stuff just is the best .

↓ All natural ingredients : baby , blue eyes and window light .

I say , pick a good spot in your home and next time you have lots of light ( with no direct sunlight ) coming in pull your children , husband , dog or even flowers into the beautiful , natural light and happily snap away .

↓ Macro photography with only natural window light .

For the technically interested : All shots are with Nikon D700 coupled with Nikkor 50mm f1.4 G or Nikkor 105mm f2.8 VR Micro under ambient light . For an added effect I found a spray bottle filled with water and added the droplets . It looks great and I am sure the flowers enjoy it as well .

A lot of today's cameras come with both spot metering and macro option s built-in . When looking for your next camera on futureshop.ca , look half way down the attributes list for " Spot Metering Mode " ( yes / no ). For macro ability check the focus range . If the minimum focus range is around 5 cm or less , you should be able to get some great close-up shots .

Message Edited by klausboedker on 06-21-2009 07:45 PM
Message Edited by ElizabethS on 07-25-2009 11:56 PM
Message Edited by Laura on 08-21-2009 10:55 AM