How many times have you been told not to take photos at midday?

Avoid burning sun and shoot during magic, golden hours – it’s conventional wisdom. But why on earth should you waste many hours every single day? Especially when you are travelling and the chances of coming back to the same place soon are rather little.

photo by Piotr Kulczycki

In this blog post you will find some tips how to deal with the burning sun and take stunning photos. You and your camera will be perfectly prepared.

There is also an excitement factor involved – you will break the rule.

You will learn why to pack:

• UV filter,
• Polarising filter,
• Graduated Neutral Density Filter,
• Neutral Density Filter,
• lens hood,
• flash,
• reflector.

Most of them don’t weight much, and work miracles!

Moreover, you will learn the trick that will allow you to forget about a grey card and still take photos with perfect White Balance.

Let’s start with your bag!

No matter whether you are going for one-day trip or set off on a journey of your life… You want to carry as little as possible.

The trick is to pack enough.

The sunny weather is challenging. However, you won’t need a lot of extra equipment. Just a few filters, a flash and optionally a reflector.

UV filter

It won’t work miracles. You won’t see any effect as digital sensors are not sensitive to UV light.

What’s the point then?

This filter is recommended as it protects your lenses from mechanic damages.

Sorry it may be painful for you, but c’est la vie. If your lens bumped to something, it would be better to have the filter broken than the lens itself.

Have this example reconcile you to buy one?

It may be useful in less drastic situation, as it keeps sand, rain and fingers

off the lens. If you shoot outside, it’s a must-have.

photo by Piotr Kulczycki

That is well and good, but some cheap UV filters influence the image quality a little in terms of sharpness, so just purchase higher quality one.

Polarising filter

Unlike UV filter this piece of glass is powerful.

Lovely blue sky turned out to be faded in the image. Does this ring a bell? If so, grab a polarising filter.

Just rotate the front part and observe the effects. Colours and reflection will change. When you like it, shoot. As simple as that.

If you need scientific knowledge about the phenomenon read this article on Wikipedia. But you can do without, so there is no point in getting into physical details of this phenomenon. Instead, let’s focus on practical benefits of using filter. It can change shots of reflections and make some colours more vibrant. WOW effect within a reach.

• Sky

The best days are such when there are some white fluffy clouds which add contrast and make photos of blue sky even more impressive. To enhance the effect of the polarizer, point the lens approximately 90 degrees from the sun to any direction. The time plays a significant role in the effect. You can obtain the maximum polarisation when the sun is about 37 degrees from the horizon. When it is close to horizon or just over your head the filter reduces haze and reflection, but don’t affect the colour of the sky.

photo by Piotr Kulczycki

Beware that when using a wide lens, the angle of polarization depends on the angle from the sun. So when you use lens wider than 24mm, the sky will be unevenly polarized or even turned black.

photo by Piotr Kulczycki

• Water

No matter if it’s a sea or a puddle – it’s reflective. On sunny days even more than on cloudy ones. If you want to get rid of the natural reflection of the surrounding area use the filter which makes the water (and glass) transparent. It’s an absolutely must-have if you are thinking about capturing fishes or any other creatures in water.

photo by Ethan Daniels

• Greenery

Plants on the photos aren’t usually as green as you remember them? Foliage is extremely reflective too, so polarising filter will do the trick and return the saturation to your shots.

photo by Piotr Kulczycki

Graduated Neutral Density Filter

Again about sky.

Think about pictures of the beach. Perfectly lit foreground and the sky that is too bright, maybe even white.

You don’t look for such effect, do you? GND filter can make a huge difference.

The top of it is dark and the bottom is bright. When attached to the lens it makes the upper part of your image darker and doesn’t affect brightness of the lower one.

It has one shortcoming – it won’t help in spots without a straight line of horizon.

Great choice for the flat beach, but forget about it shooting any higher buildings or mountains as these wouldn’t look naturally. Fortunately enough there is Photoshop with which it’s not a rocket science to adjust lightness.

Here is the image before lightness correction in Photoshop:

and after:

Neutral Density Filter

Are you a fan of long exposure? Sunny weather may worry you unless you know about ND Filter.

What is so special about semi-transparent piece of glass? It cuts down on the amount of light entering the lens, but doesn’t affect the colours. You can slow your shutter speed down slightly, or use a wider aperture.

But to get desired effect during extremely sunny day you need a really strong filter.

There are several ND filters available. Typically they are numbered (ND2, ND4, ND8 etc.) to indicate how much light the filter blocks. An ND2 allows only 1/2 of the light pass so is the equivalent of 1 f-stop. An ND4 (twice as dark) transmits ¼ of the light and is equivalent to 2 f-stops. In a result you can choose 4 times longer shutter speed.

If shooting on aperture mode, the camera will adjust its selected shutter speed accordingly.

Lens hood

Funny tulips or straight hoods.

Regardless the shape, the main purpose of these is to minimise or prevent light from striking the lens causing flare. What’s more if any light happens to get into the lens from the sides, the colour and contrast in the image is reduced. This light causes discoloured spots you might have seen, shaped like the lens aperture.

photo by Piotr Kulczycki

You can do without the lens hood so if you happen to forget it, just use your hand to block the flare from the light source, but this won’t block the reflected light. But I’d recommend having it all the time on your wide lens unless you take photos with flash. In such a situation the hood can create unwanted shadows.

Are you a fan of DIYs? So create a lens hood on your own. Visit this site and choose among hundreds of possible lenses to have it perfectly adjusted.

Flash

Are you joking? You may ask. Additional source of light when sun is burning? I was rather suspicious myself when I was starting my adventure with photography.

It looks like a crazy idea, however, when you are shooting opposite the water or any other reflective surface using flash prevents from overexposing background while having foreground underexposed. You can take the advantage of In-Camera Flash, but to have deeper control over your photo use the external one.

Still second thoughts?

Watch the tutorial by Tony & Chelsea, which shows the difference between photos with and without flash:

Reflector

Talking about taking pictures in broaden daylight, benefits of using flash and reflector are quite similar, but reflector allows you to work with natural light.

Normally, if you measure the light from the background the subject will turn black and you get silhouette. It’s not always a welcomed effect.

Watch out the colours!

Reflections come in different colours.

• Silver – enhances highlights and contrast. Great for product shots or black and white photography.
• Gold – fills the image with golden light and is perfect for sunsets or indoor portraits.
• Black – is used as a flag to block light or can be used to subtract light.
• White – produces a soft, neutral-coloured light that works as a fill light source. This one seems to be perfect for you!

Be careful while using a silver or gold side, and do not make the model look directly at it, especially in full sun, as it’s painful and blinding.

A white reflector will bounce the light, filling in shadows caused by an overhead sun. While working with the reflector, go to and fro with it or slightly move it around to see and compare the effects.

Tip:

If you plan taking a portrait picture, it can produce “catch light” in the eye of the subject – this spark of light that make viewers look straight at them. Just place the reflector under the model’s face.

Looking for perfect white?

Aren’t you able to take a photo with perfect white balance without a grey card?

Before I reveal the longed-for trick check out predefined white balance modes in your camera:

• Auto: Good if you are making your first steps in photography. However, the sooner you leave the comfort zone generated by Auto mode, the better.
• Daylight: Well, if you are taking photos in broad daylight, it isn’t so bad option…
• Shade: To avoid little cold hue in the shade that Auto mode generates, use this preset as much more accurate.
• Custom: Do you avoid this one? You are only a few steps from having it as your favourite one.

And you don’t have to own a grey card. Really.

Excited? So grab your camera and follow:

1. Set the exposure to +2, white balance mode and ISO to Auto,
2. Change to manual focus,
3. Take photo of your hand. There shouldn’t be any background. Your face palm will turn white,
4. Change white balance mode to Custom,
5. Mark the photo as the sample to Custom white balance.

Simple as that.

Forget about carrying a grey card or a piece of white paper.

It’s all in your hands.

These tools will help you to a great extent.

Don’t let the sun to burn your photos. Just tool up and enjoy sunny weather.

I’d love to know if there are any tools you find useful in such harsh weather conditions and see your photos taken on sunny days.

Boast about them sharing on Instagram with tag #PhotlerSunny.