How do photographers deal with direct light at noon?

No matter how good your photography skills are, direct sunlight at noon can be a big problem for photographers. Many people advocate avoiding shooting during this time, but due to the nature of your work, you may have to take into account the time of customers or models, and avoid them getting up too early and staying late, so taking photos in the direct sunlight at noon is almost unavoidable for photographers question, if neither you nor the model is willing to leave early and come home late, then you should know how to take photos in such conditions.

Modify strong light contrast: High contrast, highlight overflow, loss of dark details, high saturation beyond the color gamut, solar flares and other problems are very troublesome. You can easily solve most problems in photos by simply asking the model to move into the shadows. In many cases, conditions may restrict you from allowing the model to move freely, so you need to change and create the shooting environment, such as letting the model wear shadows. Use an umbrella, or use a reflector or diffuser to block the strong light.

Move or wait: When the subject is immovable or unstoppable, you can only move the shooting position yourself. Doing so will change the angle at which the light hits the subject. It can also help you get an alternative shooting perspective and get better photos. Waiting for a while certainly does not mean that you wait until the sun rises or sets. If it happens to be cloudy on the day of shooting. This may be the best time to show your quick hands and eyes. You can wait until the clouds cover part of the sun before shooting. The clouds act as a huge soft light device for you. You only need to face the frequent adjustment of exposure combination.

Why is it called fill flash: When direct sunlight forms strong shadows or dark areas are underexposed, flash fill light is very useful. Most photographers think that the light intensity at noon is sufficient for shooting, but they ignore the loss of highlight and shadow details caused by high contrast. The easiest way is to use a flash. Why is it called fill flash? It will assist you in "filling" dark parts with artificial light. Fill flash can change the direction and contrast of light so that those darker shadows don't appear dead black. This also helps eliminate shadows caused by the model's nose or behind shadows. If you don’t want to carry a heavy outdoor light to fill in the light, a reflector will also play the same role in a timely manner. At least you have to choose one between the two.

Filters and hoods: You can choose between two filters for direct light, a neutral density filter, which can reduce the amount of light entering the camera, and a polarizer, which can also reduce the intensity of sunlight. Light reflection allows you to take photos with better color reproduction. Use a lens hood to reduce lens flare. If you forget to bring a sunshade you can make it on the spot with a simple cardboard one. Or you can cover the lens with your hand to assist shooting and focusing.

Correct exposure: Subject exposure has always been a difficult problem under direct light. When taking photos at noon, you can set the camera to spot metering to meter the subject, or you can try to find a middle point that is neither too bright nor too dark, and then use that to measure. This will ensure that every element of your photo is bright enough. In addition to the above problems, you should also pay attention to the framing range and the proportion of the model in the photo when shooting. The white balance is generally automatic, and you can also choose to shoot something such as silhouette or small backlighting to increase the viewing effect of the photo.