Dealing With Bright Midday Sun

[AndrewMcD]

Circumstances have it that I do a fair amount of shooting in very bright conditions with harsh midday sun. The attached image is an example of the conditions I'm referring to; bright sky, water, sun high overhead. I'm looking for general information on how to best deal with this kind of light. In my example image the light is so bright that the figures end up being dark, shadowed and silhouetted. In this instance I used "spot" metering thinking to exposed for the figures. Is there something I can do when shooting to improve this? It's unclear to me if filters would help (my lack of experience). Is there is an optimal way to meter in these conditions, given the goal of maintaining some detail in the figures but not completely blowing out the sky and water? Any suggestions in dealing with harsh lighting conditions would be well appreciated.
Thanks,
Andrew

Sony NEX-6, 1.5 crop factor, 50mm, 1/160ss, f/25, spot metering, ISO 200

[Shadowman]

1. Position yourself with the sun at your back is the best way, sure you'll have black cast shadows, but the skin tones will pop.
2. You can try fill flash, lower your intensity of the flash if possible. You'll obviously need to get closer.
3. Use of a reflector, you'll need to get closer.

For the shot like yours, not much else you can do except shoot wide open, use a fairy slow shutter speed (live with the blur), and perhaps bump up your ISO to compensate for the slower shutter speeds. And lastly, I like the shot as taken, sometimes you have to live with the dark shadows.

[Mike Buckley]

I agree with Gonzalo that 1/160 might be too slow; I try to use nothing slower than 1/200 even when people are posing.

Try using Auto ISO if your camera has it. Set the minimum ISO to the camera's base ISO. Set the maximum ISO to whatever you're comfortable with. Set the minimum shutter according to the situation regarding focal length multiplied by the crop factor and moving objects. Using those configurations, you'll always be shooting at the lowest ISO that is possible in a given situation.

Use a polarizer even though it will have far less effect than you would prefer in this lighting situation.

Images that don't work out well in color because of the lighting situation you described can work very well as monochromes. However, in the case of this particular photo, I sure do like the colors of the kayaks.

[William W]

. . . shooting in very bright conditions with harsh midday sun. The attached image is an example of the conditions I'm referring to; bright sky, water, sun high overhead. I'm looking for general information on how to best deal with this kind of light. In my example image the light is so bright that the figures end up being dark, shadowed and silhouetted. In this instance I used "spot" metering thinking to exposed for the figures. Is there something I can do when shooting to improve this? It's unclear to me if filters would help (my lack of experience). Is there is an optimal way to meter in these conditions, given the goal of maintaining some detail in the figures but not completely blowing out the sky and water? Any suggestions in dealing with harsh lighting conditions would be well appreciated.
. . .
Sony NEX-6, 1.5 crop factor, 50mm, 1/160ss, f/25, spot metering, ISO 200

One does not need to use the TTL Meter. That "scene" is EV 15, meaning for “the scene” the “correct exposure” is F/16 @ 1/200s @ ISO200. So therefore I calculate that for “the scene” you are about 1 stop UNDERexposed.

(the "scene" refers to the "whole image" and the "correct exposure" for it as a whole, that is to say so you can have all the highlights and all the shadows exposed "optimally" - this is NOT the correct exposure for any single skin tone - because some skin tones are in SHADOW and would, need more exposure for that exposure on the skin tones to be "correct".

***

Regarding your question about the people: the direction of the light is an important factor.

Then there are the following simple rules -
> Front lit Face means Face in full sun
> Side lit people means half of the face in sun half in hard shadow
> Back lit people means face in full shadow
> Hat on head and overhead sun means face in full shadow.

For front lit people one can use EV15 (as above) which is the ‘f/16 rule’.

For side lit one can open up one stop and manipulate the final image on the sun side and the shadow side of the face in printing (film) or Post production (digital) – the “scene” will be one stop exposed, but one stop can usually be recovered in digital problem for any daylight film.

For backlit one can open up two stops and although maintaining a correct exposure for the skin tones in shadow, there will likely be a problem recovering all the highlights of the “scene” if shooting with a digital camera, but for film (most daylight film) there will be no problem shooting two stops overexposed and recovering the scene highlights in the printing.

So, if only using ambient light it is for the backlit person (or top lit and face in full shade) and when shooting with a digital camera that a choice has to be made – and that usually is either UNDER exposing the SKIN TONES – OR – OVEREXPOSING the SCENE and subsequently manipulating both in post production – and this would be done by simply making the shot a ONE STOP OVER the f/16 rule – no metering at all – just pull the shot at: F/11 @ 1/200s @ ISO 200.

***

In the sample shot, there are many people (not just one person) and the people are facing in all aspects relative to the sun and some people with hats on – so, if you like it has ALL the "people aspects" in bright sun which were described above: so, if I had made that shot with a digital camera I simply would have pulled the shot at: F/11 @ 1/200s @ISO 200 (or equivalent) - and then I would have dodged and burned the individual faces to suit and also I would have enhanced the sky (burned) to get the depth in it and also recovered the highlights.

WW

[davidedric]

Bill has given you an excellent and comprehensive reply (as he usually does!)

I just wanted to emphasise a key message: with a scene such as this, there are no settings , likely true even with flash, that can correctly expose all elements of the scene. Bill has described how to shoot so that you can potentially get the scene well exposed in post processing.

You don't say if you are using RAW or jpeg. RAW is important to make sure you have all the information that your camera can capture.

Dave

[AB26]

Andrew,

No matter what you do, in direct sunlight you will get harsh shadows in scenes where it is impossible to use artificial fill lighting.
The exposure in this scene is correct and as long as the exposure is correct you can “fix” it in PP. You can do simple adjustments to brighten the darker areas.

Watch the histogram on your camera to always get the exposure right.

[Ken MT]

Ideally you can use a graduated filter to reduce the brightness of the sun in the top part of the image, and so reduce the variation from the top to the bottom. If you are taking a lot of photos in the midday sun then a grad filter could help. There is a soft grad which is more suitable for gradual change in brightness, while a hard grad is better where there is a defined boundary

I have modified your image by applying a gradient filter in PS elements, and then I adjusted lighting by darkening the highlights and lightening the shadows.

[Mike Buckley]

It's just my take, Ken, but your rendition appears really flat to me.

[William W]

There may be opinions posted as to how to manipulate the SAMPLE image to get a good results and thus to answer the OP’s question, this response is NOT that. For clarity: this is NOT an attempt at providing a solution for the OP by manipulating the sample that has been given. My opinion of the “solution” for shooting in midday sun is provided in my post previous.

***

I reiterate that the original image is UNDERexposed. If I had taken the photograph I would have pull the shot at: F/11 @ 1/200s @ ISO200 (or equivalent). Then the major PP would have comprised dodging the people in shadow and recovering the overexposed highlights of the scene.

Below is a facsimile of that technique made firstly by taking the sample and simulating an increase in the exposure and then individually addressing each person in the scene. The original is on the top:



WW

[casper]

hi Andrew,
I think Bill has done an excellent job of enhancing the picture, but I also like your original. Unless I was planning a drastic crop targeting a particular individual, I would regard the subject as the entire scene, i.e. where it is, and what is happening - which I think you have captured quite well. I wouldn't worry about skin tones at the expense of something I considered more important. Of course, we would all like everything perfectly exposed, but for "general information on how best to deal with this sort of light", I like to start with the F16 rule as described by Bill, and adjust until I get satisfactory exposure of what I think is important. If I can achieve that, I am done - if not, try recomposing.
regards,

- Noel

[DanK]

I'm looking for general information on how to best deal with this kind of light.

There is no single answer to this. The best option depends on what you want to do best. For example, if you expose correctly for the darker faces, you will overexpose much of the background.

WW's answer is, as usual, very thorough, and I don't have much to add to it. If you don't recognize it, the exposure he is giving you is the Sunny 16 rule: in bright sunlight, the correct exposure at f/16 is 1/ISO. However, as he points out, this is the correct exposure for the scene as a whole, not for specific elements in the scene. That brings you back to the first question.

Re metering: in general, I disagree with Omega's comment, but in this particular case, I would agree. If your spot metering area were small enough that you could limit metering to faces in this image, spot metering off faces should give you results very similar to what WW described. However, your spot metering area is almost certainly far too large for that. Thus, it makes sense that the image is underexposed, as WW wrote. Your spot metering area would include a lot of the bright background, causing the camera to choose a lower exposure to compensate.

Re your choice of 1/160s, f/25: trading off shutter speed against aperture would of course not affect the basic exposure issues at all. And with a 50mm lens on a crop camera, 1/160 should be OK for hand motion, even in the absence of image stabilization. However, like some others, I would choose a faster speed and wider aperture. The faster speed would lessen the chance of blur from motion, and the image will be a tad sharper if you don't stop down as much. As for depth of field: check out something like dofmaster, if you haven't, to get an idea of the DOF you need. The beach appears to be on a diagonal, with the people on the right farther back, which will increase the DOF you need, but still, you won't need anything close to f/25.

Re ISO: on most modern cameras, the choice between ISO 100 and 200 is irrelevant as long as whichever you choose allows you to get the aperture you want at a reasonable shutter speed. On my older camera, a 50D, I can see no appreciable difference at all.

[MrB]

Andrew, have you tried shooting bright contrasty scenes, like the one above, by using the HDR Mode available in the Sony Nex-6, which is in the Brightness/Color Menu? Click on the following DPReview page link to see the effects of this mode:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sony-alpha-nex-6/12 (scroll down the page a bit)

Cheers.
Philip

[William W]

Maybe not for that scene precisley, because there is movement within the scene and the 3 shots to make the HDR take about 0.5 secs to expose (depending upon the shutter speed maybe longer):

> the people in the scene are moving . . .
> so is the water.

WW

[MrB]

Maybe not for that scene precisley, because there is movement within the scene and the 3 shots to make the HDR take about 0.5 secs to expose (depending upon the shutter speed maybe longer):
> the people in the scene are moving . . .
> so is the water.
WW

Quote from the link in Post #13, "In addition to auto-aligning images. the Sony implementation of HDR also attempts to identify changes between the three images and will work to avoid duplicating subjects that have moved during the three exposures. This allows its use beyond static subjects - an unusual and useful aspect."

Cheers.
Philip

[William W]

Hi,

Yes I read the link.

But when I was considering purchasing a smaller camera (than DSLR) I've played with the Sony. I did not have a lot of playing with that particular HDR function, but have used it in a few various shooting situations and that's why I wrote: "maybe not for that scene precisely" as I am not convinced that the Sony's 'attempts' (op. cit.) would actually succeed for that scene posted by the OP.

I don't know, though: maybe /maybe not.

WW

(I ended up buying Fuji)

[AndrewMcD]

Sorry for not getting back to this thread earlier....
First, thanks to everybody for responding. There is quite a body of knowledge here to ponder.
Believe it or not I had never heard of the "sunny 16" rule. This will be interesting to compare the results using that rule and using TTL metering.
I have never used the auto ISO feature...I'll give Mike's suggestions a try as well.
I do shoot RAW and have not attempted using the in camera HDR. Shooting from a small boat on the water makes handheld a challenge. Clearly the 1/160ss and f/25 settings were a bit of brain fade.
Thanks again, very thought provoking.
Andrew

[davidedric]

I have not used in-camera hdr (in fact I do little hdr) because it seems to me that I am relying on the camera both to produce the jpeg and create the hdr, and that seems to ask a lot of a little processor.

So I prefer to stay with RAW and bracket the shots. Then I do the hdr in computer, where I happen to use Lightroom and the Nik hdr plug in - it feels as if I should have more control and in principle be able to get a better outcome.

I've never done any comparison, so I may just be creating complications. Any views?

Dave

[MrB]

Although I do not have a Sony Nex-6, I do use a modern DSLR that has HDR Mode, which I use fairly regularly because it is effective in some difficult situations. The camera is set up so that only two button presses are needed to take it into that mode.

The following is a general point, not directed at anyone in particular because I don't know anyone here well enough, but I do know that it applies to some of the serious amateurs I have met -
There are some users of modern cameras who don't have a clue what their powerful processors and firmware are capable of, because they have never bothered to try them out properly. Instead they have just followed the mantra of never shoot JPEG always shoot Raw. There are also some who don't realise how much extensive editing is possible, starting with a best-quality JPEG image file from a modern camera, before the quality deteriorates to a level at which it becomes unsuitable for critical viewing.

Therefore my suggestion would be that anyone with a modern camera that has an interesting and potentially useful feature, should investigate it thoroughly - how it works, whether it will work for you, and if the product can be edited relatively easily to give the image result that you visualise.

Cheers.
Philip

[Mike Buckley]

anyone with a modern camera that has an interesting and potentially useful feature, should investigate it thoroughly - how it works, whether it will work for you, and if the product can be edited relatively easily to give the image result that you visualise.

I can't imagine that anyone could successfully argue against that.

[AB26]

I reiterate that the original image is UNDERexposed.
WW

Andrew,

Look at the histogram of your original image. There is no clipping to either side of the histogram. This is an indication that the exposure was indeed correct.
You will see a long blue spike in the histogram that is an indication that the Auto WB was not “correct”. Turning the “heat” up in the Kelvin scale would have “pulled” that blue spike to the left, more in line with the rest of the graph. If anything in the image is “wrong” it is the WB. Not much, just a tad!

If for any reason you cannot trust the TTL metering of your camera you might as well dump it and get a Nikon.

The only “criticism” I have is you shooting at f25. At f25 you will get diffraction that will render your image “softer” than it should be. F 25 can be used by people shooting cameras with no OLPF to avoid moiré in some shots.
Shooting between f9 – f16 will be a better call. Rather push the shutter speed up than the f stop. ISO 200 might be base ISO on the NEX 6, I don’t know?

I REITERATE – Trust the metering system of your camera and watch your histogram to determine if the exposure is correct. If exposure is correct you can do ANYTHING with a RAW image in PP.