Full Sun & Overcast shooting tips?

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For those of you who are experienced.. How do you handle shooting in full sun or completely overcast conditions? Specifically for event shooting.

 

 

[andy lee]

full sun I always used nd filters

at least ND8 (nd16 maybe needed) and stop down to about f8 or f11

I dont go lower than f11 as you can get lens artifacts bouncing around producing dark spots on the image

if you have any dust on your sensor it will also appear as dark hexagon shaped areas at f16 -22

NDs are essential in bright sunlight

1/50 sec at 100/ 160 iso or lower

 

Over cast is easier - open up and you may remove the ND filters as necessary depending on how much light there is.

1/50 sec as low iso as you can 100 / 160 etc

[/p/]

full sun I always used nd filters

at least ND8 (nd16 maybe needed) and stop down to about f8 or f11

I dont go lower than f11 as you can get lens artifacts bouncing around producing dark spots on the image

if you have any dust on your sensor it will also appear as dark hexagon shaped areas at f16 -22

NDs are essential in bright sunlight

1/50 sec at 100/ 160 iso or lower

 

Over cast is easier - open up and you may remove the ND filters as necessary depending on how much light there is.

1/50 sec as low iso as you can 100 / 160 etc

 

Thanks Andy, I am ok with camera settings but for example.. If it's a bright sunny day even if I shoot flat and TRY to grade results always look similar and very "video" like.. And then the opposite for heavily overcast days even if I grade it always looks very dull. 

 

When I look at other people footage though they somehow get around it.. I don't know if it's solely grading and/or there are certain things they can do while shooting to help get a nicer image. I wondered if they were using on camera lighting or something? Off camera doesn't seem viable so if it's not that maybe I just suck at grading.

[andy lee]

what camera are you using?

 

I never shoot outside without using ND filters , This really helps with the 'look' Im after

[Oliver Daniel]

Full sun is a pain in the arse, especially with shots that cover a wide dynamic range.

ND filters are a must. In controlled shoots, I usually think around it by blocking it out. Again, pain in the arse.

[MOONGOAT]

Harsh sunlight + event can be a pain. You don't get the luxury of setting up silk frames. The best you can really do is ND or stop down and have a camera with a lot of latitude, then drop the contrast in post.

 

If you have control over your subjects ask them to move into the shade.

 

That Australian sun is brutal on contrast ratios.

[silvertonesx24]

Usually, try and keep the sun behind you when shooting.

Polarizers for me are a must.

Use long lenses as you'll usually be stopping down more than you think. I'll admit plenty of times I've cheated the shutter angle

[Axel]

1. ND-faders a.k.a. Vari-NDs will not be as usable as a fixed ND8, convenient though they are in many situations, in direct sun around noon they steal even more colors and have other, not controllable effects.
2. There is a problem with saturation in the shadows. In the additive color world of RGB blacks have no saturation, white has 100%. All the usable colors you record live in the middle between two extremes. If you raise the exposure, you havn't as much important detail ('normal detail, i.e. faces) swallowed by shadow, but you will get the highlights clipped. That in mind, you need to assign as many values as possible to the midtones. Best use a histogram.
3. As was said before, preferably have your whole motif in the shadow.
4. Or have the sun in your back. This classic advice, however, is not always good. Sometimes you can't avoid brutal contrasts in harsh sunlight.
5. Then the only way to reduce the contrast is to FACE the sun, open the aperture as wide as possible and expose on the (EVENLY backlit) motif. This will clip the entire background. A mattebox (or at least your protecting hand) can help to stop or reduce lensflares. Do tests with shadows, backlight, underexposure and grading to be prepared in the situation.
6. Should you use as low iso as possible? Looks the wise thing to do, but guess what the auto mode of my old Canon camcorder did? >put on the ND (good) >closed the aperture (bad) >used shorter shutter times (sometimes not so good) >pumped up the gain (seemed to dramatically reduce the contrast). Comments?