Lessons Learned: Valley Forge Sunset Shoot

Image Copyright Joe McNally

I had an idea. I wanted to experiment and try an outdoor portrait session with some flashes during sunset. The inspiration came from the the truly amazing photographs of Joe McNally. His image to the right is what I always picture in my mind when I think of both Joe and working with flashes. I personally love the outdoors and get fully engrossed when photographing landscapes and Joe McNally's images such as this one resonate with my creative tastes and aspirations for photography.


A few elements that I wanted were an open scene with tall grasses, trees, and the sunset in the background with great skies and colors. I also wanted to shoot wide and use flash to add some dramatic lighting to my subject. I thought of a place and the weather for a  good sunset looked to very likely so we set on out to Valley Forge National Park.


Rebecca and I brought along our cameras, a couple of flash stands, umbrellas, and a 5-in-1 collapsible reflector. We've been to Valley Forge before so I had a good idea where I wanted to be in time for the sunset. We drove around a little, scouting a few other possible locations but ended up just where I first thought we'd be. We arrived just after 6pm so we had plenty of time to setup and prepare. Sunset wasn't until just after 8pm but the surrounding hills, trees, and some cloud cover would lessen the light considerably from about 7:30pm and on wards.

I first setup with the flash high overhead, shooting through an umbrella, pointing straight down. I metered the sky and found that I needed to shoot around f/16 and 1/250 at ISO 200 to get the sky where I wanted to. At this aperture and speed, the little SB-600 was working at full steam and then some probably. I had the SB-600 gelled with a 1/2 CTO so that along with the umbrella was really cutting down on the amount of light getting into the camera. I was shooting using iTTL as well and was set on full-matrix metering. Some test shots showed that while the sky looked pretty good, the light coming down on Rebecca and the surrounding area was just too much, too harsh. I tried to dial in some exposure compensation all the way down to -3 but that still didn't give me the results that I wanted. So I switched off from iTTL and went to manual and then experimented and tried to find the level of light that I wanted.

In hindsight, I should have used a 1-stop or 2-stop ND filter so I could open up my aperture. This may have allowed me to shoot without needing full power from the flash and would've controlled the sky. I should have also switched to spot-metering as well so iTTL didn't think it needed to light-up the whole scene evenly and fire the flash at full power. 

We rolled with some photos and there were still a couple of things that I wasn't satisfied with. First, the composition wasn't good for me. I had to work with the light stand and umbrella to the left and keep it from cropping into the scene. I also had to deal with the sun which was visible but behind the subject. On top of this I had trouble getting the flash to trigger when I moved in too close and lost my line-of-sight to the remote flash. I wanted to get closer, I was shooting with an wide-angle lens, but I couldn't because once I got too close the flash wouldn't trigger. Last, the light still was not just right. I needed some fill on her face to even out the light and shadows.


I mostly solved these problems by using a 36" gold reflector. I placed the reflector on the ground and angled it up at Rebecca. This filled in the shadows on her face and evened things out. I then decided to try putting the reflector directly under the camera and try to use it to bounce the pop-up flash to help trigger the remote. This worked! Though I couldn't get as close as I wanted, I could get closer and I didn't have to try to angle the camera upwards as much towards the remote flash.

Here's where some radio triggers, such as Pocket Wizards, really would have solved the flash triggering issue. I wouldn't have had to compromise my composition as much and worry about line-of-sight. I could have gotten closer and turned off the pop-up flash which would have prevented a few shots with blinking eyes. Having a stand with a boom or having an assistant that could hold the flash and umbrella on a boom would have opened up the left side of my frame and I wouldn't have had to compromise on composition as much by trying to prevent the stand from appearing in the frame.

As the sun started to hide behind clouds and soon the trees and hills in the background, the light changed and faded and I had to change my exposures. It actually became more difficult to achieve the correct balance of light that I was looking for even though the sky wasn't as bright and harsh as it was earlier in the shoot. I tweaked both my exposure and the flash, trying, and hoping to get it right. Once the sky started to go dark and the surrounding landscape fell into dim light as well, we stopped.

I had two very costly mistakes. One, I failed to meter for the sky again. The sky was really getting dark in my exposures and my tweaking wasn't really helping things enough. Plus don't forget that I was still in matrix-metering and that wasn't helping as well. Two, I never looked at my histogram. Not once! I always look at my histogram when shooting! Fail! Why this was any different, I don't know, but this was one of the reasons why my exposures were on the dark side. Third, I had the brightness of my LCD turned up to +3. It was set high because I was shooting in the bright afternoon sunlight earlier. I forgot to change it so what looked decent on my LCD in the evening was actually under-exposed. Double Fail!

I made lots of mistakes but at the same time I learned a great deal from this experience. We also had a lot of fun. Isn't that what photography is all about? Some of these things can easily be corrected by a visit to B&H online while others will take some more patience and practice to master. One thing that I am happy with is realizing that you really can create some dramatic photographs using just a single light. We can't wait to get out there again.

Sharpening for the Web

Here is something that I've known about for some time, put it on my list of things to learn and do, but haven't taken the time to just do it until now...sharpen my images for the Web.

Some of us, me included, don't post SOTC (straight out of the camera), full-size images on the Web. That means you have to resize them using Photoshop, Lightroom, or whatever your image editing software of choice is. Resizing an image also means resampling the image from one dimension to another, say 2832x4256 (12MP) to 683x1024. When you resample an image this way, that is downsampling, you are reinterpreting the pixels and you are losing data! There's all sorts of names for the phenomenon that goes on when you do this, ringing, aliasing, blurring, artifacts, etc. There are also all sorts of algorithms that can be used to resample your images and each has a pretty significant impact on the quality of your image.

I won't go into a a long technical discussion about resampling algorithms and sharpening algorithms. You can read up all about them on the Web if you are interested. Instead i'll just show you a workflow that I'm using now that creates great looking images from your full-sized images for the Web. Perfect for Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr, and the like.

1. After you prepare you image and have completed all your post processing, export or create a full-sized JPEG of your photograph. Then open the JPEG in Photoshop. Here is the original, full-sized JPEG of the image I'll be working with here (Click on the image to see it full-size).

2. Resize your image to your new dimensions. Here I am sizing this to 683x1024 for the Web. Select Bicubic Sharper (Best for reduction) for the resampling algorithm.

3. Now that your image has been resized and resampled, it's time to apply some more sharpening to try to reel in some of the detail that has been lost. For this I use the Unsharpen Mask... Filter. I typically try amounts from 200% to 400% and a radius of 0.3 pixels and leave threshold at 0.













4. Now your image is ready for the Web!


Here's a comparison between the unsharpened image and the sharpened version after resizing the images. Roll-over the image with your mouse to see the sharpened version.

These images are zoomed at 300%. Notice the difference in texture of the football and the sharpening and detail in the face. While there are some visible artifacts in the sharpened version, remember we are viewing this image enlarged at 300%. At 100% you won't be able to see these (see the next image below).

roll-over with your mouse to see the sharpened version

Here are the two final images, again for comparison, now at just 100%. Roll-over with your mouse to see the sharpened version.

Can you spot the artifacts now? I don't think so.

Which one looks better? The sharpened version if you ask me.

This is my nephew btw. I can see much better detail in the football, his face, his hair, his tattoes, his shirt, and his pants. The overall effect isn't obviously noticeable but it results in a better looking image. Isn't that the point? So now you can create great images for the Web and have everyone envious asking "how do you take such great photos?"

roll-over with your mouse to see the sharpened version