Using Harsh Sunlight as a Light Source

August 23, 2011

Using Harsh Sunlight as a Light Source

     I already wrote an instalment about diffused light, so now I'll write one about harsh light. I forgot to take a wide-angle photo, but the setting is the same sunroom that I used before. I left the window screen down, but the sunlight nevertheless was still harsh.

       Harsh light is harder to work with because the contrast is wider. What that means is that the bright areas (highlights) compared to the dark areas (shadows) had a bigger difference from light to dark. It's harder to capture the scene even with a DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) or any digital camera. If you have Photoshop and a tripod, and keep the same f-stop but change the exposures, you can take a series of exposures to capture the lighter and darker areas. You then take all of these photos and in Photoshop apply a command called HDR (High Dynamic Range). What this does is take all the different exposures and "blend" them to get better detail all over (highlights and shadows). You need to however have a tripod and Photoshop. You then need to play around with different exposures to see which ones are best suited for the HDR process.

     The simpler method is to use reflectors. What the reflector does is to add light to the scene. What you want to so is especially through light all over, but into the shadow areas. This then makes the shadows brighter, and reduces the contrast between the light and dark tones.

    Don't worry if you didn't understand what I wrote. You may need to read the text 2-3 times but you'll understand. The series of photos below will help you understand much easier.

    I selected tomatoes on an impulse. I decided at the last moment to add this instalment. At this time of year, the sun sets in Montreal, Quebec, Canada quite fast, as with other western countries. The tomatoes were just picked by my wife from out 4-plant tomato patch.

    Nevertheless, round objects are best to use when writing about light as they will have reflections that will easily show where the major light source (Sun) and the minor light sources (reflectors) are positioned.

 

Sun in the front position

Sun in the back position

Sun in the side position

The above 3 photos show you the affect of the sun and camera positions. All I did was reposition the camera relative to the sun in order to have the sun light the subjects at different angles.

 The light or sun position is always names relative to the camera.

Sun in the side position.

A reflector has been added off to the side.

Notice how the dark shadows are brighter, the contrast is lower,and the added reflection gives a better 3-D effect with the extra reflection.

                                                             Sun in the side position.

                                                         2 reflectors have been added.

              The way you can identify the 2 reflectors is to look for 

 the bright spots on the tomatoes.

                   There is a problem with this photo - I added too much reflected light (called fill light).

                      This has now created conflicting shadows - a major "faux-pas" in photography!

                    Since we live on a planet with 1 sun, we can only have 1 shadow, hence the "error"!

                  Another "error" is to place a reflector at 180 degrees from the sun. Now all of the tomatoes

                   have identically-placed but opposite reflections. You have sets of "eyes" watching you!

Here's my soft box.

For the best detail all over, this is best.

For drama, mood, or 3-D, this is worst!