photo - Ken Gilbert

ight, sunny days, a subject
backlit by the sun is very evenly
illuminated from the front by diffuse
ambient light. In the case of
the Galápagos hawk photo above,
the backlit bird is illuminated by
refiection from the white sandy
beach below.
The simple rule is to keep your
subject on the line between you
and the sun to minimize direct
sunlight entering the lens. You will
almost always need to overexpose
from the meter reading to get
good detail in your subject: In the
Galápagos
hawk
captured with
a handheld
Canon EOS-
1D Mark III
and 70–
200mm f/4L
Canon EF IS
lens; 1/400
sec at f/7.1
(+1.7 EV over
the meter),
ISO 400.
Swallowtailed
gull
chick,
cropped, shot
handheld with
EOS 50D and
70–200mm
f/4L Canon EF
IS lens; 1/400
sec at f/8,
ISO 400.
www.storemags.com & www.fantamag.com
hawk photo, I added nearly 2 stops
of exposure over the camera’s
evaluative meter reading.
When working with backlighting,
there will always be some
small parts of your subject that
will be lit directly by the sun. To
make sure you’re not overexposing
important detail, enable the
highlight warning on your DSLR,
generally found in a setup menu.
On playback on the LCD, this
warning will fiash “blinkies” on
highlights that are blown out.
Remember, though, that some
loss of highlight detail may be
unavoidable in backlit photos.
After shooting, you can lighten
shaded areas in a variety of
ways in numerous image-editing
programs. A Curves adjustment
in Adobe Photoshop is the one I
use most frequently. A simpler
Photoshop tool for this task is
the Shadow/Highlight slider set.
It’s easy to overdo fllling with the
Shadow slider, so be careful.
Work right on Frontlight
Backlight not working for you? Try
the exact opposite strategy: direct
frontlight. Even at midday in
summer, the sun is almost never
directly overhead. Look for your
shadow, and position yourself
so that the shadow is pointing
directly at your subject. This puts
the sun precisely behind you.
Now position yourself low, or
level with your subject, and move
in or zoom in for good framing.
Watch for the perfect head
angle—when the subject’s face is
fully lit, flre the shutter. I used this
technique for both the spoonbill
in Alafla Banks Bird Sanctuary
in Tampa Bay (far left) and the
northern gannet on Bonaventure
Island in Percé, Québec, shown on
page 124. (For the spoonbill, I was
sitting chest-deep in water.)
When working frontlit, especially
with light-colored subjects,
Continues on page 124
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