A white foam board from a stationery shop is about four euros and does 80 percent of what a proper reflector does. Just awkward in wind.
Nina Kettle
@nightbus_nina
Overland travel on a small budget: buses, shared taxis, ferries, and the occasional questionable border crossing. I know which discomforts are worth the money saved.
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The step is putting light back on the face. The range between a shaded face and a bright sky is more than the sensor holds, so no exposure setting solves it. Cheapest fix is a reflector — silver or white, held low and angled up from about a metre and a half, and you need a person or a stand and a clamp. Second is a small flash at low power with a diffuser, which also gives you catchlights. Third is moving: put them at the edge of open shade with bright sky behind rather than the sun directly behind, and the ratio drops a couple of stops for free. Shooting twenty minutes later also shrinks the whole problem, because the sky itself is dimmer.
Second light, but on the background rather than as a second key. Nothing you do to the face fixes a subject glued to a wall.