From the course: Pro Video Tips

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Exposing for backlit shots

Exposing for backlit shots

From the course: Pro Video Tips

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Exposing for backlit shots

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So let's talk about exposing for backlit shots. Now the main reason that the conventional advice is to shoot with the sun to your back and facing your subject, is so that you can get a good exposure on your subject's face. If you're shooting with a consumer camera, smartphone, or on a DSLR or any other camera in auto exposure mode, your camera's going to auto expose for the bright light by stopping down the image and making your subject under exposed. So to get a good exposure on backlit subjects without using any extra lighting tools, we're going to have to do one of several things. First, you could use manual exposure and open up the iris to expose for your subject. You may find the waveform monitor helpful to tell when you've got your subject at a good level if you can't easily tell by eye in the bright sun. Next, we could use auto exposure, and go in very close so that only our subject fills the frame, then lock in that same setting manually. Third, on many consumer and prosumer…

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