Taking Dramatic Silhouettes Is Easy – Just Trick Your Digital Camera: One of the problems with digital camera is that they are for the most part fully automatic. Now that works out great if you’re taking standard pictures. But what if you’re feeling a little on the creative side and want to shoot, lets say, a silhouette of a person? Well now your fully automated digital camera needs to be tricked.
[via creativepro.com]
Capturing the Silhouette
With your subject and background set, you can get your camera ready to take the shot. Capturing a silhouette is really a matter of setting the camera’s exposure for the bright background, so we’ll need to trick the camera into adjusting to underexpose the foreground. Since digital cameras rarely have the same features, we’ll show you a few different approaches for setting your digital camera to get the silhouette effect.
The Magic of the Half-Pressed Button
Most digital cameras employ a two-stage attack when you press the shutter button. The first, when the button is half pressed, allows the camera to meter the scene, set focus, perform white balance and a whole host of other processes that automatically set the exposure for the shot. When the button is fully pressed, the camera opens the shutter and captures the shot according to these settings. In order to trick the camera into underexposing the foreground, you’ll need to use the half-pressed button technique to your advantage.
The trick is to point your camera at your background, press the shutter button halfway down to get the correct exposure, and then reframe your shot while holding the button down. Once your subject is framed, fully depress the shutter button to take the shot. The camera will properly expose the background while underexposing the foreground, producing a silhouette of your subject. Figure 3 shows the scene from Figure 2 metered directly in the center of the subject as well as the location we chose to meter to achieve the silhouette effect.
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I would love to learn how to shoot a basic silhouette. I’m having all kinds of problems. Thanks.