Foreground lighting in Scenery images

[raymarlow]

I am no expert in foreground lighting. I suppose its as simple as measuring out the distance to the large rock in your foreground and setting up the flash manually to expose the foreground at the proper focusing distance. Any other suggestions? perhaps using a reflector to brighten things up?

[marxz]

I think the first thing is to go to the strobist site and glean as much off there as you can.


http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/


but it sounds like you have the right general gist of the solution... the strobist might help also with suggestions such as using a snoot to isolate the rock, or a gobo to create mottled light patterns... etc etc etc.

also probably you'd want to light it from an angle to avoid the " deer in the headlights" flash from front feel... the strobist is pretty good for that off camera flash stuff too

[steveprice]

I used to have this problem with fill-in flash. But now many camera and flash combinations eg my Canon 5D and Speedlight 430EX automatically perform the calculation you have described. And in my experience it is very successful at doing it. If I use a diffuser, it still manages to compensate for it. Very clever stuff. I know Nikon have a similar system but cant speak for other makes.

Steve Price