Basic Lighting Setup

Here is a basic lighting setup for outdoors portraiture images:

1.            Set your camera to Manual Mode and underexpose the background for about 1 
                stop

2.            Use the sun as a backlight (if there is no sun available, place a speedlight on a tripod and point it on the subject’s hair)  

3.            Set up a speedlight in a softbox (for smooth lighting) and place it at 45 degrees angle high and above from your subject (if you don’t have a softbox you can use an umbrella or a diffuser)

4.            Control your speedlight(s) via the pop-up flash of your camera (if you don’t have a pop-up flash you can use the SU800 IR transmitter, another speedlight, pocket wizards, or cords)   

The above image was taken to a local park by using the sun, an SB900 attached on a softbox and an SU800 on a D3s.