AHHHH Need a crash course for sunset beach shoot!

[wonderer]

A friend has asked me to do some shots of her on our local beach at sunset. I woud love to get some decent shots that make the subject pop out. I have a D90 and jessops lightgun but have never done low light/flashgun shots before.
My limited capacity brain assumes to get off the ground with this i need to set the camera to manual, first expose for the scene and then start with the flash on its lowest and gradually increase power until subject is lit correctly. Is this right?
The sun will be behind the subject. Would i be able to achieve a decent shutter speed to avoid blur if the aperture is set high to keep the entire scene in focus?

 

[J4MIE_P]

You're pretty much on the right lines already

But not too sure what you're on about on the last line.
You need to get your shutter speed at 1/200 if using a Jessops flashgun, and change your aperture and ISO to set the exposure for the scene, then introduce the flash and work your way to the correct lighting.

If you want a wider aperture to get some more bokeh then use an ND filter

 

[itsdavedotnet]

get a reflector Easiest, nicest (and cheap ) way of evenly filling in this kind of thing.

flash in the pan does them iirc.

 

[Blue Eagle]

What lenses do you have? and are you thinking of having the sunset behind your friend and flashing them to compensate? because you could just use a wide aperture and keep the sun behind you, using only natural light (and save having a crash course in flash )

 

[Rough Edges]

The jessops flashgun is a pig to get working off camera outdoors, (I have one with a D300) So you may want to get some cheap radio triggers like the RF604..

Edit... I meant the RF602s oops.. Sorry..

 

[markyboy.1967]

I tried this for the first time recently. We were at Paphos beach. I underexposed the background a little for more effect and then used the little SB600 for the wife and daughter, i was quite pleased with the pics using the flash for the first real time.Also did loads of sihlouettes which was a first for me also.

 

[wonderer]

Ok cheers guys. The plan was just to keep the flash on camera and use to fill flash with the sun behind her. Will a reflector actually create enough light bounced back with a setting/ set sun?

 

[Richard King]

Ok cheers guys. The plan was just to keep the flash on camera and use to fill flash with the sun behind her. Will a reflector actually create enough light bounced back with a setting/ set sun?

Nearly

 

[Richard King]

A friend has asked me to do some shots of her on our local beach at sunset. I woud love to get some decent shots that make the subject pop out. I have a D90 and jessops lightgun but have never done low light/flashgun shots before.
My limited capacity brain assumes to get off the ground with this i need to set the camera to manual, first expose for the scene and then start with the flash on its lowest and gradually increase power until subject is lit correctly. Is this right?
The sun will be behind the subject. Would i be able to achieve a decent shutter speed to avoid blur if the aperture is set high to keep the entire scene in focus?

there are 2 things to get right - the scene and the subject. If you are using flash, then the shutter speed you can sync at will determine what differential you can get between the two. higher shutter speed, the darker you can get the background, and the more contrast the subject will have with it

what you throw in with a reflector, will also be effected by your shutter speed

look at the strobist website - they have some tutorials on this

here are the varients that make a difference to the background exposure
shutter speed (to balance the flash)
overall exposure of background (shutterspeed and apeture)
here are the varients that make a difference to the subject exposure
power of flash
use of reflector
residual ambient light
apeture