Beach Babe Photo

Click on the photo for a larger view.

Here is a photo I took of my daughter, Bella. It was an unusually warm November day and we decided to spend some time at the beach. I was also anxious to test my 430 ex ii against the sun. With the San Clemente pier in the background I began firing away. My first thought was to have the sun provide both a back light and rim light for Bella, check. The sun was at 11:00 and providing lots of light.

Since I had plenty of light I knew I could use a fast shutter speed. I started with setting my aperture to f/5 mostly because I wanted to make sure Bella would be sharp and I knew my Tamron lens didn't get sharp enough until I stopped down to f/4. I chose f/5 also because I wanted to include the pier as a reference, but still wanted Bella to be the focal point, I was afraid f/4 would blur the background too much since I was only 5 feet away from her.

The shutter speed had to be fast. Even though the aperture was stopped down I still had too much light for a good exposure. This is where I used the camera's light meter to tell me where to set the shutter speed. I was going for a slight underexposure to help Bella pop a little more when I lit her with the flash.

Next I had to set the flash. I didn't want to think about this setting so I set the flash to ETTL, or automatic. The purpose of the flash is to provide a fill light for Bella's face. since I was exposing for the background I knew her face would be too dark to see, so I added some light.

One I had my settings it was a matter of patience before I had the shot I wanted. Bella was busy practicing her hand stands and digging holes next to me. The photo I settled on was probably the 10th photo I took in the series.