Settings for contrejour photography
If you are shooting into the sun (“contrejour” = “against the light”) you need to over expose your shot by one to two stops unless you are aiming for a silhouette. The reason is that you want your subject to be correctly exposed, not the background. If you are on any kind of auto exposure mode (including aperture or shutter priority modes) the camera will take the background into account when calculating the exposure and will darken the whole shot in an attempt to get the bright sunlight to a mid-grey tone.
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This technique is perfect for capturing autumn leaves with the low sun lighting them from behind. The two images above were taken on aperture priority mode. The first shot was the camera’s choice of exposure: too dark. I dialled in 1.5 stops of exposure compensation to allow the tree to be correctly exposed. The background will probably be too light, but because of dynamic range issues, you can’t have both the tree and the background correctly exposed unless you use a fill light.
Settings to start with for contrejour
1. Use either aperture or shutter priority mode and select the aperture/shutter speed that you want.
2. Find the exposure compensation button or dial (use your manual if you don’t know where it is). On some cameras you simply turn a dial, on others you have to first press a button marked “+/-”.
3. Try dialling in plus one stop of compensation to start with. That’s one full measure, not just one of the small notches (they signify half or third stops depending on how your camera is set up).
4. Review your image and adjust the compensation as required. The amount of compensation you need will depend on how bright the sun is compared to the light falling on your subject.
The image on the left needed two full stops of exposure compensation. The one on the right only one. (Bonus tip: to get the sunburst use a small aperture. The shot on the left was f16.)
Things to remember
Exposure compensation doesn’t work in Manual mode: you can just use your combination of shutter speed, aperture and ISO to manually select an exposure which is bright enough.
Don’t forget to put your exposure compensation back to zero when you’ve finished, otherwise the next time you take your camera out all your shots will be over-exposed.
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