Backlight
A shooting condition where the light source is behind the subject, often causing the subject to appear dark or silhouetted.
Backlight refers to a shooting condition where the light source faces the camera from behind the subject. The camera's auto-exposure is drawn to the bright background, causing the foreground subject to appear dark or silhouetted.
To properly expose a backlit subject, use exposure compensation (+1 to +2 stops), fire a fill flash to illuminate the subject (daylight sync), or switch to spot metering on the subject. Intentional silhouette photography is also a popular technique, especially for sunset portraits.
Post-capture correction involves lifting shadows using brightness adjustment or tone curves. However, aggressively brightening dark areas reveals noise, so shooting in RAW to preserve dynamic range is ideal for backlit situations.