How to Best Shoot Under a Mid-Day Sun

On this Adorama video, photographer Bryan Peterson  takes a look at how you can effectively take images under a strong mid day sun when typically the colors get washed out.

We tend to think of sunlight and having lots of light as a good thing for photography – and it can be, but having very strong light can actually be a problem especially the very harsh mid day sun (typically between 11:00-16:00 – depending where you are) when shooting outside in a place with no shade. This is exactly the example Peterson is exploring on the video above. His answer? using a polarizing filter to cut down reflections on the surface of any object.

Actually if you want some more examples, photographer adam marelli did a blog post on this very subject with a few very useful examples and a general note about using polarizing filters for things other than landscape photography including portraits.

We have looked at different advantages of using polarized filters in the past including “Tips for Shooting Through Windows  On this video photog” with Gavin Hoey and “Photographing Waterfalls” Sarah Howard.

You can find more helpful photography tips on our Photography tips section here on and  LensVid.

Iddo Genuth
Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.

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