July 6, 2016 admin

How to Embrace the Sun When Taking Photos

Summer is here and every outdoor activity from beach vacations, pool parties, family picnics, tennis matches to outdoor weddings are occurring all over the country right now. The bright summer sunlight can create quite a challenge when it comes to trying to photograph these fun and exciting events. Here are some tips and tricks for capturing some great fun-in-the-sun shots this summer with your new point and shoot or DSLR camera from Beachcamera.com. Setting Up Your Camera

You are going to have to move out of your comfort zone on this one and move away from your automatic settings. Try Aperture or Priority mode instead.
With the sun beating down on you, you’ll need to have a low ISO. An ISO of 100 is ideal.
To ensure that you capture natural colors, set your white balance to auto.
This may seem redundant, but turn on your flash in order to brighten some of the shadows that may be cast from the brightly shining sun.
- The key to getting the perfect shot anytime is taking multiple photos. The same holds true when shooting photos in direct sunlight. Shoot low, high, and from different angles by moving around your subject until you find the best light. The slightest repositioning can make all the difference in the way the light affects your image. By moving yourself and the subject all around you will have many angles of light hitting your subject from which to choose while also seeing the angles of light you’ll want to avoid.
- When taking photos of people, avoid having the sunlight come directly from the side because this will create harsh shadows.
- A reflector of some type to bounce light back on the subject and fill in the shadows comes in handy under these conditions as well. This can be a handheld diffuser that you can carry around and position yourself, or it could be something in the vicinity of your photo shoot like a light colored wall or a sidewalk bouncing light back up to your subject.
  Sakar Universal Flash Diffuser from Beachcamera.com
  If you allow yourself to move into manual mode and play around with the settings, flash and the use of a natural or purchased reflector, you will get some amazing results. Shoot from Multiple Angles
- The key to getting the perfect shot anytime is taking multiple photos. The same holds true when shooting photos in direct sunlight. Shoot low, high, and from different angles by moving around your subject until you find the best light. The slightest repositioning can make all the difference in the way the light affects your image. By moving yourself and the subject all around you will have many angles of light hitting your subject from which to choose while also seeing the angles of light you’ll want to avoid.
- When taking photos of people, avoid having the sunlight come directly from the side because this will create harsh shadows.
- Keeping the sun behind you while photographing people doesn’t usually work out well either because this means the subject will be facing the sun causing squinting. However, this is the perfect method for for photographing landscapes or even action shots when the subject won’t be looking directly at the camera.
  - Keep the sun in front of you and behind your subject creating a type of back-lighting. This causes the light to hit the subject from behind creating a rim of light around the subject. This works best when the background behind the subject is darker than the backlight.When you get ready to take your next picture this summer, look at the subject before you place the camera in front of your face and see how the light is hitting the subject. Also, avoid letting the sunlight shine directly into your camera lens. This could create a lens flare or overexpose the image. It will also make it difficult for the camera to auto focus if you are unable to let go of this feature when taking your photos in the full sunlight this summer.