When you’re shooting in direct sunlight, you face big difficulties every time. In most cases, these are related to not getting the perfect exposure out of the shots. So, most of the time, the shots come out to be overexposed or underexposed which is fine if you’re just clicking regular shots but, it’s a problem if you’re trying to get more professional shots, then it’s literally destroying the purpose. So, how to get out of this morning nightmare? Well, you can put a little bit of extra effort into it & you’ll be out of the woods. These are 5 essential daylight photography tricks to get perfectly exposed photos under direct harsh sunlight.
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Adjust The The Exposure Settings Of Your Camera
The first & the most basic step will be adjusting the exposure of your camera. Increase it when your shot is underexposed or bring it down when the shot is overexposed. This solves the issue sometimes. If this doesn’t work, move to the next point.
Make Sure Your Subject Is Back-facing The Sun
If your subject is directly facing the Sun, the harsh sunrays will completely overexpose their face. So, if you make them stand back-facing the sun, that issue gets eliminated. Now, what if the subject is not a person & it is facing the sun anyway or won’t this process make the subjects face look dark? Well, we’ll solve the first concern in the last tip but, let’s solve the second concern in the next point, right now.
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Use A White or Silver Reflector To Bounce Back The Sunlight
Reflectors are literally the solution to the second concern encountered in the last point. When the subjects tend to underexpose due to back-facing the Sun, you can use a White Reflector or a Silver Reflector in some cases to bounce some light back to the face of the object. The reflector should be facing both the sun and the subject but, in case you want to expose one side more, you can place the reflector on that side. You don’t need to buy expensive reflectors though. You can use a foam board as a white reflector & you can take another one & wrap that in kitchen foil (not wrinkled) & make a silver reflector.
Use A Telephoto Lens If Possible
Shooting with a wide-angle lens in direct sunlight often makes it difficult to balance the exposure between the subject and the background. Using a Telephoto lens & zooming in a little bit helps to eliminate this situation. It also gives that shallow depth of field that we all love in images like this. If you have to use a wide-angle though, that we’ll have to solve in the next point.
Use An ND Filter
This is the solution to the first concern of the second point & the wide-angle problem of the second point. ND filters work like sunglasses but, in this case for your lens. So, if your subject is not a person & it’s in direct sunlight or you’re shooting with a Wide-angle lens or you’re shooting with a wide-aperture (f-1.8, f-1.4, f-1.2, etc.) lens, it filters the extra sunlight & gives you a properly exposed image. If you’re using a wide-aperture telephoto lens though, it’ll give you a super shallow depth of field as well.
So, those were our 5 top daylight photography tricks to shoot perfectly exposed photos in direct sunlight. Did you find it useful or there is something you’d like to add? Let us know in the comments section below.
