Dealing with bright sunlight

[Vertigo]

We all know how nasty bright sunlight generally is and that, whenever possible, you should get the hell out of it.

But what if you can't? When shooting portraits or groups shots such as at a wedding, if you have no other choice but to shoot in bright sunlight, how would you ideally position the subjects relative to the sun to get the best results?

Personally I'm thinking having the sun to the side and using some fill flash to soften the harsher facial shadows would be best but I'm curious how others would deal with it.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Back to the sun.

sometimes you need fill, depending if you want the background in focus or not. Otherwise just compensate and move the exposure comp to the right.

Bam !

 

[Vertigo]

Certainly one option and great pics. With the subjects' backs to the sun I'd always have assumed that, if you expose the subjects correctly, the entire background would be blown.

 

[Raymond Lin]

The background wont be blown completely (sometimes unfortunately).

 

[Columbo]

Even if the background is blown, as long as you shoot RAW it's easy to use LR's ND grad tool to tone the blown background down.

 

[Paul11]

i would use a flash, expose for the background and pop in some flash to light the subject.

 

[Vertigo]

Even if the background is blown, as long as you shoot RAW it's easy to use LR's ND grad tool to tone the blown background down.

If there's any detail left to recover then yes, but if the entire background is blown then all you'll end up with is a solid white/grey background.

 

[Vertigo]

i would use a flash, expose for the background and pop in some flash to light the subject.

I think the best bet would be somewhere inbetween tbh. If you do what you suggest then the flash becomes the primary, and almost exclusive, light source for the subjects which, in the absence of anything to bounce it off, risks very harsh lighting.

If you go the other way and expose purely for the subject with no fill flash then you risk blowing the background too much.

 

[D.P.]

Depending on how bright the sun is put your back to the sun, as long as people can open their eyes then you will get much better lighting.

 

[Vertigo]

Depending on how bright the sun is put your back to the sun, as long as people can open their eyes then you will get much better lighting.

Squinting issues aside though, wouldn't the light be a bit too "flat"?

 

[Paul11]

I think the best bet would be somewhere inbetween tbh. If you do what you suggest then the flash becomes the primary, and almost exclusive, light source for the subjects which, in the absence of anything to bounce it off, risks very harsh lighting.
.

if you want to have a correctly exposed background, or even slightly under exposed for some drama in clouds etc, you dont have a choice.

and you can always diffuse your flash, to keep the light softer

 

[An Exception]

What I do: Put subjects back to sun. Under expose a stop. Correct exposure in post and recover the desired highlight detail I think it will improve the image (sometimes it's better to blow out the background).

Very harsh early afternoon sun (17th of May if you remember how sunny that was).

When the sun get's a little lower, you will struggle more to keep the background exposed correctly, at least until it then get's suitably low.

Below is Golden Hour

Alternatively if you can't wait until then, I would do my best to find a tree to put the sun behind.
Below would have been harsh sun.

The one thing I wouldn't do for a few reasons.. is use a flash. But's that's just a personal preference.

 

[mrk]

As above, sun above to one side or use it creatively and use the sensor's dynamic range to recover some elements like parts of blue sky or shadow detail. Works very well especially with combined with depth of field effects from a prime lens