Whether you are a professional photographer or an amateur, you will face situations where you have to make compromises with the image quality or image concepts. I’ll share nasty situations when you can’t get the job done the best way, but you have to come up with a decent solution anyway.

Pick Your Favorite: Blurry, Not in Focus, or Lots of Noise?

There’s not enough light. You have to photograph a group of people. No flash, just ambient light. Shooting at f/4.0 will not have them all in focus. Using a shutter speed of 1/10th of a second will produce motion blur especially on that ever moving child on the first row. Your camera’s high ISO’s noise is pea-sized but still not high enough to get a decent exposure.

What to do? Shooting a group of people at a wide open aperture is possible if you shoot with a wider angle lens. If you don’t have enough light you may switch to another lens that may distort the image geometry but you will be able to shoot even at wide open apertures and eventually everyone is in focus. There are depth of field calculators you can install on your phone or that can be used online to determine if the depth is enough to get everyone in focus. If you are experienced your gut feeling will tell you that you could probably shoot at f/2.8 at 24mm and have two rows of 10 people in focus.

Wider lens will also allow you to shoot at slower shutter speeds. A rule of a thumb is to use a shutter speed at least twice your focal length. For example if you shoot with a 24mm your shutter speed needs to be at least 1/50 especially for those with shaky hands.

If none of these is an option you go for the high ISO. Sometimes that’s the best image you can get. Shoot in a raw file format so you have more dynamic range in post. Even if the ISO value is not high enough to give you a decent exposure you may be able to bring the exposure up about two stops without vastly degrading the already bad image quality. Do not try to eliminate all the noise in post if that would worsen the image significantly. Reducing the noise tends to make things blurry and lacking detail.

Flash Sync Speeding

You shoot with a flash but your ambient light is too strong so you reach your flash sync speed. This is the fastest shutter speed at which your frame does not have black bars at its borders. You can’t set a higher f-stop number because your flash is already at its maximum power level.

What to do? The first thing I would try is to cross the flash sync barrier and deliberately have that black bar thing in my frame and see if I have left with a part of the frame that is usable. Later in post I would crop it and my image may become 16:9, 2.35:1, or a square. If cropping is not an option I would lower my exposure by changing the ISO to a smaller value or the aperture to a higher f-stop and… brighten up my subject in post. That would be my last resort.

Lights in Frame

Perfect composition but your lights are in frame? The most natural solution is to move them out of frame. Sometimes that’s not possible because you may lose the light quality or there’s time for just two clicks and the model is out.

What to do? I would evaluate if I is possible for me to remove the lights in post. If not, I’d shoot a tighter image sacrificing the perfect composition with a less perfect version of it. If lights can be removed in post I’d also shoot a tighter one just in case. There are situations where you can embrace having the lights in the frame and boldly show them up.

Cutting Fingers, Chopping Heads

When you need resolution and the composition is perfect but there are cut fingers and chopped heads in the image.

What to do? Let them hungry, poor photography trolls have some food to eat. Leave the image as it is.

The Client Doesn’t Like the Idea

Your brilliant idea you brainstormed for a week is not what the client wanted. Always have a plan B and a “safe idea” in the worst case. Be prepared to think of something new depending on the circumstances. Don’t be afraid to propose something that may look even bolder than the first idea. People think differently and the client may actually think it’s better. Sometimes your best ideas may come under pressure.

Rain and Flash

I don’t know about your gear, but mine still doesn’t get along with water. Here’s the situation: You plan for using a big softbox and two other lights but it starts raining. No assistants, no (casual) umbrellas.

What to do? I usually have a handful of plastic bags with me. I use them to cover my flash heads and batteries when it rains or snows (lightly). Sometimes I use an umbrella instead of a softbox. It shapes the light and keeps the flash head from the water. If I insist on using flash, I’d find a cover above my head and my flashes (what about the models?) and shoot with a longer lens towards some greens to make the illusion I am outdoors and it’s not raining. In the worst case I’d shoot with natural light. I like shooting with flashes, that’s why that’s the worst case scenario for me.

Another option is to try to simulate sun light and warm up the image by changing the color temperature to 6000K or more depending on your taste. The same can be used when photographing at cloudy days. If you want to simulate sun make sure you don’t include the sky in your shot.

Space Too Small for a Perfect In-Camera Portrait on a White Background

If you have photographed on a white background you know the subject has to be further away from the backdrop so there’s less light spill and more contrast in your image. Sometimes you don’t have that luxury. Your client’s space is small and you have to pull a nice portrait on a white background anyway.

What to do? Dial down the power on the background and fix it in post. You can’t fix the contrast if your background blows up the shot but you can brighten it up quite easily using the “Levels” adjustment layer in Photoshop by dragging the right slider to the left holding down the Alt/Option key to keep track on the highlights adjustment.

Other Nasty Situations?

Do you have other situations that need to make a compromise but you don’t know how? Ask in the comments below or share your compromise experience to help others when they happen to deal with such circumstances.