Photographing in Direct Sunlight

[MustangNic]

Thank you all so much, this is incredibly informative. So if I get the background wrong, I can always try and put it in B&W and see if it works better with some contrasting?

On your advice I tried some B&W, which I'll post below.

I also started shooting in RAW+JPG the last time I was out. I felt really silly for not shooting in RAW before once I saw how many more editing options were open to me.

KmH thanks for that great link and Derrel for the really comprehensive explanation and everyone for each post explaining things very simply for me.

I'll look at getting ND and polarising lenses this week and update with photos. I'll also read more into flash and figure out what to do to sort that out.

Here's the shots I've converted to B&W:

Original pic from 1st page and now similar image(shot just after the 1st) in B&W , side by side.

A couple more picture with bad backgrounds I've converted to B&W

I kept the mountains in this one as it seemed to follow the curve of the back and used some gave it some warmth.

 

[MustangNic]

When shooting against the light, the lens needs to be **immaculately** clean. And along with that, a good lens hood is an absolutely essential piece of equipment. In fact, many times when shooting toward the light late in the day, having an assistant hold a card or hat or something above and off to the side of the lens front, to actually cast a shadow onto the front of the lens, can boost contrast. The shot of the horses grazing near sundown, for example...that image is suffering from lack of contrast that I think is caused by veiling glare...the lens is not shaded well enough.

I had a good sized lens hood on for that shot. I clean the lenses before each use, but it's so dusty up there that I do get spots sometimes. I'll remember the card/hat trick if I go up with a friend and try that out too, thank you!

 

[Josh66]

Just turned off my computer and I'm on my phone now, so I'll make this brief (I hate typing on my phone). ND alone isn't enough - you need ND in conjunction with flash. ND for the sky, flash for the horse.

To expand on this (Had to work - needed to get to bed)...

An ND filter alone would just make everything darker, globally. If you exposed for the sky, the horse would be too dark. What you need to do is use the filter to get the shutter speed down to something a flash can sync with. Use the ND filter to get the exposure you need for the sky, then use flash power to get the exposure you need for the subject.

I do agree with Dominantly though - flash might not be practical in your situation. If you could shoot with the Sun to your back, it would be almost the same - but instead of flash, the Sun would be the extra light you need on the subject. The ND filter, if you use one, is going to darken everything - including the subject - so you would have to find a way to add additional light to the subject. Just slapping an ND filter on won't do anything unless you are also adding light to the subject. The idea is to lower the exposure of the sky without touching the subject. ND filters don't work that way though.

You would have to use the ND to get the sky where you want it, then add light to the subject to get that where you want it. The added light could be the Sun, or flash. Basically 'compressing' the dynamic range of the scene to something that the camera sensor is able to capture without losing shadows or highlights.

 

[Wrightrobert]

Reading your post here will surely help me out,because this was the exact thing I really want to know about.