How to shoot in the midday sun?

Since the invention of the camera, photographers have been struggling with the strong noon sun. Extreme contrast, strong light, heavy shadows, gloomy pictures and other annoying situations are most commonly encountered when shooting at noon.

1. Shadow

The easiest way to deal with sunlight is to avoid it. We can't let the sun change its speed, but we can hide under buildings, trees and other artificial or natural objects. However, not all shadows are the same, such as mottled shadows, heavy shadows, surrounding shadows, side shadows and overhead shadows.

Remember that shadows are not without light, otherwise nothing can be photographed. On the contrary, shadow is the softening of light, and the softened light will shine on the subject through other media. It is important to decide from which direction the light shines on an object-usually the light comes from more than one direction. Generally speaking, the nearest reflector or the weakest softened light is the most important light source.

This becomes especially important after adding background elements. For example, the main body is located at the edge of the shadow, followed by the building in the shadow. The subject is much brighter than the background. This is because the reflected sunlight is closer to the main body of the shadow edge. Moving the subject backward and close to the background will make the relative illumination ratio between them closer-reducing the contrast of the scene. Knowing the direction of light is very important for taking photos with different effects.

2. Fixed focus lens and polarizer

Fixed focus lens and polarizer are good tools to reduce the strong light at noon. The fixed-focus lens is sharper than the zoom lens, and has better control over contrast and glare. Did you find any green glare in the photos taken in the sun? Fixed focus lenses are better at dealing with glare and internal reflection. In addition, you can also use a hood, which can also have a good effect.

With a fixed-focus lens with a polarizer, you will get a clearer picture, with more saturated colors and higher contrast. Polarizers can filter polarized light in light and reduce glare and ghost. It can't eliminate the shadows on people's faces in the midday sun, but it will definitely make your scenery and travel photos clearer and more transparent.