
Caption: Hispanic family
Technical data: Photo taken with a tripod mounted Nikon SLR film camera and Nikkor 85mm f1.8 lens using existing daylight & fill-flash. Approximate exposure 1/125 second at f11 - Fuji Sensia 100 color transparency film. No lens filters were used.
Film was scanned using a Minolta Dimage series film scanner. Photo file was routinely optimized using Photoshop; color balance, levels and curves, sharpening, cropping and dust spot removal using clone tool. I use a Mac for all photo processing.

Comments: This family was seated in a shaded gazebo at mid-day. Behind them was a bright scene of foliage. There was a huge difference in lighting values between the group and the background; if I exposed for the people then the foliage would be "blown out", if I exposed for the background then the group would be nearly black. So I added several stops of fill-flash to the scene to bring up the exposure of the family to match that of the background.
I normally use the camera in manual exposure mode in these situations to gain more control. I meter the background and set the camera exposure to match that. The flash is set to auto TTL and takes care of the rest.
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