Back lighting is one of the toughest situations to expose for unless you really learn to study your camera’s metering. By definition, back lighting is when your primary light source is behind your subject. For example, in the above photo the sun is behind the little girl. If you went along with what your camera’s metering system says, it would render her and the other main details of the image as way too dark. And if you underexposed, then it would be extremely dark but you would get details in the sky.
So the answer is amazingly simple: overexpose by a stop. When you overexpose an image, you’re doing what we call, “Exposing for the shadows.” While your eyes can see the subject clearly, your camera can’t. Afraid of losing the sky detail? You can pull the highlights back in Adobe Lightroom quite easily.
When would this be useful? Let’s say you’re trying to shoot a cityscape with the sun behind it but your camera isn’t giving you the details in the city. Instead, it is turning the city into a silhouette. First off, take your camera off of auto mode and put it in either P, S, or A. Then crank up your exposure compensation by one stop. And voila you’ll have the photo. Shooting in manual? Expose your image to one stop brighter than what your camera is telling you is perfectly balanced.
Try it, and remember this for next time.
For more Useful Photography Tips, check out our entire list right here.
