*NOTE*– I made these pictures with my Canon 40D and the kit (17-85mm f5.6) lens in order to illustrate what is possible with normal consumer equipment. Like some of you, I get irked when I see these sorts of tips being accompanied by samples taken with a $6000 pro rig.

Often times you’ll find yourself outside in some pretty difficult lighting conditions making it a real a challenge to get a good exposure on your subject and the background. Case in point, here is a photo taken in the reasonably harsh 3:30pm sunlight. I placed the subject in some slight shade and got this result.

A simple way to fill in some light on her face is to use some sort of bounce board. Same situation using the silver reflector.

Nope. Now we’re overcompensating resulting in not only a bad photo but also an angry model. Let’s try the soft white side.

Much better. Let’s make a quick comparison of the two together.

By no means the perfect photo but good results in under 1 minute. Full disclosure- I used a professional, collapsible light disc in these shots but you don’t need to spend too much money or time to get the same results. Keep your eyes peeled for a large piece of white cardboard, tape some aluminum foil to the non-white side and you’ve got yourself a skookum bounce board.