How to Balance Ambient Light and Flash for Improved Portraits

One of the most useful skills any portrait photographer can learn is the ability to balance both artificial and ambient light in a portrait. If you are learning how to work with artificial light and want to improve your skills, check out this great video tutorial that will show you how to balance natural light and flash to create better outdoor portraits. 

Coming to you from David Bergman with Adorama TV, this awesome video tutorial will show you how to balance flash and natural light. This is a useful skill for any portrait photographer who shoots outside. A classic and frequently popular look is the subject with something like a dramatic sunset behind them. The problem is that with the sunlit sky behind your subject, you have to lower the exposure to avoid blowing out the highlights, which results in a corresponding underexposure on your subject. You can bring that exposure back up in post, but this will often result in a severe dent in your image quality and noise on your subject. The better solution is to bring the exposure on your subject back by using flash, which will give all elements of the frame a balanced exposure. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Bergman.

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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