Black background in daylight

[IntrepidStu]

When Ive taken photos in the woods (in daylight), They look like it is the middle of the night. The subject appears OK but the background is totally black. I think I may have used the flash.
I want to be able to take a snapshot of the missus doing normal camp things (action shot) but also want the trees and light in the background.

Also, What is slow syncro?? and could it help me??

Cheers guys.
Stu

 

[Squidders]

Try metering the exposure on the background and using the flash as a fill flash... do a bit of googling on front and rear curtain flash for different situations. Slow synch basically means using the flash with a long exposure and it's something I'd recommend playing around with as there are no hard and fast values.

 

[Belfastman1958]

You don't say what sort of a camera it is, ie, film, or digital?

I've had some fantastic low-light and night time results by setting the digital camera to Auto and turning the flash off. Set the camera on a small tripod and leave it to set up the shot itself.

Alan

 

[brancho]

I've had some fantastic low-light and night time results by setting the digital camera to Auto and turning the flash off. Set the camera on a small tripod and leave it to set up the shot itself.

I have good results even without a tripod with my compact by supporting it firmly on bins lamposts and chuch pews etc.

 

[shep]

Slow flash is what you need. The camera will expose for the whole scene and the flash will fire to illuminate your foreground. A fill flash setting will have a similar effect.

If you want to go fully manual, your shutter speed will determine the overall exposure, but won't effect the flash bit of the exposure which happens in a small fraction of the time shutter is open. The aperture you choose will effect the flash exposure. I'm never clever enough to get this right first time so trying various combinations is the way to go.

The difference between front and rear curtain only matters in certain circumstances. It just determines whether your fill flash happens at the start of the exposure or at the end. Eg. if the subject is moving in one direction you want movement trails behind the movement, or if your subject tends to look away after the flash has fired.