Sunrise: It was a foggy morning so I didn't get what I wanted.
Mid-Morning
Zenith
Mid-Afternon: Sorry for the sunspots
Sunset
Information on this assignment:
The light of the sun is so common that many photographers do not carefully consider it. It is there every day, and most of the time there is plenty of it. Cameras even have a daylight white balance setting. However, in order to get the best possible photos when the sun is our main light source, we need to understand it on a more complex level.
Though it might seem that sunlight is much easier to work with than studio lights because we don't have to set up and take down the sun, it is actually more difficult than studio lights. The reason for this is that we do not have control over the direction, intensity, or degree of diffusion of sunlight with the same ease that we do with a studio light. Instead, we have to understand what happens in different conditions and wait for the lighting condition we are looking for. This requires a very different mindset and sometimes a great deal of patience on the part of the photographer.
Two of the most important things to know about sunlight. We will start with the most commonly encountered change in sunlight: clouds. Clouds between the sun and the subject of the photograph cause three important changes in sunlight.
First, clouds act as a diffusion screen. The larger and thicker the cloud, the softer the light on the subject. As the light gets more diffuse, the contrast range of the scene goes down. sunlight from a heavily overcast sky is the best thing for contrast control. It fills the shadows, wraps around the subject better than any softbox, and nearly always results in a contrast range that is well within the dynamic range of even the smallest and oldest digital camera. Overcast light also changes slowly over the course of the day. It is very easy to expose correctly for overcast lighting conditions, as long as you get the white balance right.
In addition to diffusing the light and lowering its intensity, clouds also raise the color temperature. This is where things get a little tricky. The exact color temperature of an overcast day is controlled by the color temperature of the sunlight before it passes through the clouds, as well as the altitude, time of year, and thickness of cloud cover.
The more clouds there are between the sun and the subject, the higher the color temperature of the light falling on the scene. An overcast day is almost always at least 6000K, and usually higher, up to 8-9000K in some cases. So if you set your camera's WB to daylight and shoot under a cloudy sky, you will have bluish, desaturated photos. The simple answer is to use a custom white balance for accurate color. Once you do, you will have rich, smooth colors that can be pushed to very high levels of saturation if desired as long as you use ETTR.
Fog is very similar to overcast light in terms of its affect on sunlight, but it lowers the intensity of the light even more. It is also the bluest type of cloud light unless it is very thin fog at sunrise or sunset. In those cases it can take on a diffused version of the colors of the sunset. On rare occasions, fog and mist on the horizon can refract the image of the sun that has already set and project a distorted, flattened version of the sun up into the sky just above the horizon. Since we don't know the sun has set, we see what looks like the sun being squeezed flat, then going down. On even rarer occasions, a green flash can be produced after the sun sets over the ocean, or the sun can appear to go down, then reappear briefly in a smaller, flattened version, before setting for good. All of these are optical phenomena caused by light refracting through fog and/or mist.
Fog is also much trickier than an overcast day because of its unique reflective properties. When sunlight hits the water particles that make up fog, it reflects off of their surfaces and can easily fool meters into thinking that the fog is much brighter than it actually is. A thin fog on a bright day is also one of the few situations that can fool an incident meter because of the way that this type of fog raises the apparent light level throughout the scene. Because of this, photographing fog is like photographing something white. You should always overexpose at least a stop beyond what your meter recommends. Even though it often appears very dark to the eye, a dense fog has similar reflective characteristics to a thin fog. Both require careful metering, overexposure, and frequent checking of the histogram.
Though the cause is similar to fog and overcast, clouds passing in front of the sun are a very different lighting condition. Like the other two, they diffuse the light and raise the color temperature when they are in front of the sun. However, when a cloud moves out from in front of the sun, the light level can jump four stops or more in a fraction of a second, while the color temperature goes down and the contrast range goes up significantly. The smaller the clouds themselves, the harder to shoot in this kind of light. Bright, mid-day sunlight with small clouds moving rapidly past the sun is a condition that should be avoided. The light changes too fast for an accurate exposure to be made without great difficulty. If forced to shoot in this type of conditions, you will need to use some type of light control. Fill flash and scrims of diffusion screens are the best option if your subject is small. Reflectors aren't as helpful because the exact direction of the key light changes with each new cloud. If you are shooting a wider view, this is one of the situations where waiting for the weather and light to change is usually the best plan.
Another situation to be avoided is very thin fog and/or high, thin overcast on a bright day in the middle of the day. In this condition, highlights are very hard and the sky is nearly white. Everything becomes intensely reflective and highlights are easily blown out. Midtones disappear and wide views become blown highlights and blocked up shadows. The type of light on these days also makes people squint, so your talent will be very uncomfortable if you are shooting a person.
Full sun in the middle of a brightly lit day with a clear sky is a very high-contrast lighting situation that is well outside of the capabilities of digital cameras to record detail in both highlight and shadow areas. However, many events that are photo-worthy take place in this kind of light. Sports events, outdoor festivals, and weddings (to name a few) are often scheduled specifically so that they can take place in this kind of light. If possible, choose subjects that are either fully lit by the sun or in full shade. Either of these situations will be within the dynamic range of your camera. Keep in mind that though full sun is around 5500K, full shade will be 6,000-8,000K. In addition, the color temperature of full sun does not vary significantly throughout a location, but the color temperature of shade varies greatly depending on how much of the sun is blocked by whatever is creating the shade. The deeper the shade, the bluer the color temperature. The “Shade” preset is a starting place, but a custom white balance is far more accurate when possible. The most important thing is not to leave your white balance set for full sun if your subject moves into the shade. When shooting a subject in full sun, don't forget that you must preserve the highlights and let the shadows go dark if a choice is to be made, since the highlights cannot be recovered once all the channels are blown out (255, 255, 255 in ACR and 100, 100, 100 in Lightroom). If you loose one or two channels, you may have severe difficulty recovering the detail. The best thing is to avoid clipping any of the channels by setting and accurate white balance at time of exposure and using your in-camera RGB histogram. Even better is shooting tethered to a computer when possible to check the histogram in the 16-bit ProPhoto space.
If you are working in events, documentary, or journalism and you must shoot a subject in a light condition where the subject is partly in shadow and partly in full sun at midday, the best contrast control options are reflectors and fill flash. If you are in the other genres of photography, the best choice is to come back later in the day when the contrast has gone down.
If you are working in events, documentary, or journalism and you must shoot a subject in a light condition where the subject is partly in shadow and partly in full sun at midday, the best contrast control options are reflectors and fill flash. If you are in the other genres of photography, the best choice is to come back later in the day when the contrast has gone down.
Full sun at midday does not have the same increase in color temperature as a cloudy, overcast, or foggy day does. Full sun at noon at sea level is right around 5500K. Depending on the camera, your white balance setting for “Daylight” preset can be anywhere from 5000K to 5900K. This is because different cameras render color differently. Two different cameras may need fairly different WB settings to render the same colors in the same way under the same light.
As the altitude increases, the color temperature of sunlight goes up. This is because the earth's atmosphere blocks the ultraviolet radiation emitted by the sun, to some extent. As we go higher, there is less thickness of atmosphere between the subject of the photo and the sun. The thinner atmosphere allows for more of the UV and near-UV wavelengths to reach the earth. UV gives us sunburn and the near-UV colors of blue, indigo, and violet become stronger in relation to the warmer colors of the spectrum. A significant white balance adjustment must be made at altitudes starting around 5-7,000 feet. From here up, the sunlight on a clear day is a blue or bluer than a cloudy day at sea level. Once we get to 9,000+ feet, the color temperature goes up to above 10,000K, as the chart at the beginning of this module mentions. At these altitudes, the contrast range is too great to photograph during most of the day. Sunrise and sunset are the best times.
Light changes with time of day. The clouds exaggerate or counteract what the sun is already doing. The same cycle occurs at high altitudes, but in an exaggerated manner.
Shortly before sunrise, when the sky is just starting to lighten, the color temperature is very high. At this time it is similar a heavily overcast day, even if the day is clear. The temperature warms slowly until the sun is about to rise. Starting just before the sun rises, the color temperature suddenly warms. Depending on location and time of year this switch to warm can take as little as five minutes or as long as an hour. Once the sun clears the horizon, the light is golden and very warm.
As the sun rises across the sky in the early morning, its light begins to cool again. By the time it reaches the zenith, it is around 5500K. As it travels back down again, the process repeats, but in reverse. The light warms slowly until just before sunset, where it jumps suddenly into the "golden hour." Then once the sun sets, the colors fade and the color temperature climbs rapidly until darkness takes over.
The contrast also changes as the day moves through the cycle of color. Before sunrise, the contrast is very low, often fairly high key and pastel compared to sunset. Contrast increases as the sun moves to the zenith, and then starts to decrease as it moves back down. During golden hour contrast can either decrease further (cloudy or misty) or go up again when the shadows get longer (clear day). Once the sun drops below the horizon, the contrast plunges to almost nothing for a brief period, and then darkness falls.
Shadows also change length and character throughout the day. Before sunrise they are extremely diffuse. Once the sun rises, they appear suddenly and are very long. As the day progresses they shorten and develop sharper edges until the sun reaches the zenith, when they are directly below the object casting them. In the afternoon, they lengthen until the sun sets, when the diffuse and disappear into night.
When shooting to capture the colors of sunrise and sunset or to take advantage of the lower contrast during those times, there are a few things to keep in mind.
- Meter often.
- Use your knowledge of white balance to interpret the light.
- Know your location.
The light changes very quickly, sometimes losing or gaining several stops in a few minutes. Shooting at sunrise and sunset requires advanced planning and lots of experience. Sometimes you only have a few seconds to meter, set the camera, and take the shot before the light is completely gone.
Do the research to find out when sunset is and how long the golden hour is likely to be at a given time of year. Sometimes this means taking notes one year, then waiting the 12 months until that condition comes around again. If you can't do that, find someone who has done it for the location you want to shoot at and ask him or her.
Choose a subject that will take on different aspects as the light changes over the course of a day. You will need to be able to visit the location at least five different times over the course of a single day. You may shoot as many different scenes as are necessary to turn in the following images:
- Shot 1: Sunrise - Within one hour of sunrise
- Shot 2: Midmorning - at least three hours after sunrise
- Shot 3: The sun at its zenith - Within one hour of 12 PM (high noon)
- Shot 4: Midafternoon - Shadows starting to lengthen (3 PM or later)
- Shot 5: Sunset - Within one hour of sunset
Use ETTR metering, a tripod, and bracket every shot if your subject matter allows. Don't turn in the full bracket. Turn in only the best exposure. The five different shots need not be of the same viewpoint. They do need to be in the same general area so that you are seeing a single locations light change over a single day rather than different times of day at different locations. Keep in mind that light is an uncertain thing. Stay flexible in the details of your subject matter to take advantage of the best light. And don't forget that reflectors work great with sunlight.
Since the ultimate reason for understanding light is to make photographs that speak to the viewer, your five images should be related either conceptually or formally.
You should have a total of five images for this assignment.
Purpose
- To gain a better understanding of how to capture high-quality images in sunlight.
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