Using Manual Mode when Shooting Backlit Flowers
You need not go to Washington D.C. or Kyoto, Japan in order to catch all the world′s cherry blossoms. Every spring the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens in New York City hosts its′ own cherry blossom festival. In this case I photographed directly into the sun to create this backlit image. For this type of image it is recommended to shoot your picture with the camera in manual mode to compensate for the bright sun in the image which can fool your meter and result in severe underexposure. If you prefer you can also use the exposure compensation feature on your camera. In this case set it to +3 to get the proper exposure on your backlit subject.
© 2007 Andre Costantini, New York DPA Instructor