Looking at the photos from Elena Shumilova on 500px, you can see a clear preference for backlighting and halo effects on many of her subjects. For example, this and this.
How do you meter with the camera to get this kind of exposure where the scene is strongly backlit, the background isn't completely blown out, there is a good halo on the subject, and the details of the subject are still clear?
When I try to do this, I end up missing at least one of the above. Either I get a silhouette, or the blow-out is so bad I cannot get any detail back, or some other drawback. This is shooting with raw.
Is this just the excellent dynamic range capability of the camera or is there a technique to achieving this effect?
Answer
The trick here has nothing to do with metering, and everything to do with timing and atmospheric conditions.
You want to shoot late in the day when the sun is very low in the sky, preferably when there is lots of haze. This gives you a good diffuse light from the hazy area to lift the shadows and a manageable amount of rim lighting from the sun itself.
If you try this mid morning or mid afternoon or with very clear skies the contrast between the highlight and shadows will be too great, no mater how you meter or expose the photo. Even if you have a very wide dynamic range camera, or shoot multiple exposures to blend you will still have problems with flare.
Much better to simply wait until the highlight and shadows balance themselves!
see also: What is "golden hour"?
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