Controlling Background Ambient Light by Ruben Dario Cruz
With so much emphasis on controlling exposure on your subject it can sometimes be a daunting challenge to worry about what’s happening to your background. Fact is, while your main subject is of greatest importance, being mindful of the entire image leads to better composition. In addition to controlling action, the shutter of your camera also controls how much of the ambient light in the background is captured. Taking command of this can be tricky depending on existing light, subject movement, and whether you’re using flash. The photo below of a baby Monarch butterfly was shot with a Tamron SP AF 180mm F/3.5 1:1 Macro lens and a ring flash handheld. Because I was shooting a moving target I used a ring flash, which aids in freezing motion. Typically this leads to a darker background but in this case I was shooting at high noon and there was plenty of light falling on the objects in the background. The potential problem results an image with a very busy and distracting background taking away from the strength of the subject as you can see.
In the above image my shutter speed was set to 1/125th of a second at F/8 @ISO 100. Since it was shot on a D-SLR I could quickly see how distracting the background became and made an adjustment on shutter to 1/250th of a second and tweaked my angle just a few inches to the right.
The result is a background, which will not draw the viewer’s eye away from the subject. I know what you’re saying, I can do that in Post, and I would agree. But let me suggest that shooting for the correct exposure and composition is a more effective use of your time and energy and adds to your command as a photographer. The same principal can be used in reverse, if you want more depth in your image, use a longer shutter speed. The image below of a Monarch caterpillar was shot with the Tamron 180mm F/3.5 at 1/250th of a second and a single studio light. The result is a dark background.
While the image is adequate I wanted to show more of the African Violets in the background to compliment the yellow in the caterpillar. So my second exposure was at 1/100th of a second and again I tweaked my angle a few inches above the subject, which resulted in this image below, a stronger composition in total.
This concept can be applied to any subject and will lead to more successful composition. Happy Shooting! |
