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B+W
The crucial part of the silhouette technique is the exposure. You
need to expose for the bright background so that anything between
it and the camera will silhouette. Fortunately, this is really easy
because when faced by the right kind of scene, your camera will
naturally try to expose for the brighter areas, so silhouettes are
produced automatically. I tend to work in aperture priority exposure
mode, setting the lens to an aperture that will give sufficient depth
of field, then leaving the camera to set the ‘correct’ shutter speed.I check the image and histogram and, if necessary, dial in some
exposure compensation to make the shot lighter or darker.
If the background, or part of it, is very bright, you need to take
extra care. At sunrise or sunset, for example, if you include the
sun’s orb in your composition there’s a high risk of underexposure
because the intensity of the sun can fool your camera’s metering.
To avoid exposure error, check the initial image and increase the
exposure accordingly – usually +1 stop or so will do the trick.4 GET THE EXPOSURE RIGHT
Kaukoland, Namibia
In this kind of contrasty situation, where
there’s a bright background and shady
subject, your camera will automatically
set an exposure that creates a silhouette.
Canon EOS 5D MKII with 70-200mm zoom
4 lens, 1/640sec at f/4, ISO 200