A beautifully lit shot, but how is it captured?

Note: If you do not know how to operate the main look functions of your camera, read this quick article: How to Easily Operate a Camera in 3 Steps

Picture this: you’re outside filming on a sunny day, your shot is completely over exposed. You’ve set your camera aperture is at f/22, ISO is down to 100 and the shutter is far beyond where it should be– and still the scene is over exposed! Your image looks terrible, is the focus soft? You wont know until later.

There is a better way! Learn how to shoot video in the sun by using the following simple steps.

Step 1. Buy a Neutral Density (ND) Filter for Your Lens

Those threads at the end of your lens can house a number of filters, the Neutral Density (ND) filter is the most important filter in your arsenal. An ND filter will act as sunglasses for your lens. The filters come in a 4 variations: .3, .6, .9, 1.2– as the numbers move higher, the amount of light being let into the lens decreases. Once you have your .ND filter on, you can open up your aperture to get that beautiful depth-of-field effect you’re looking for.

As you can see in this example, an .9 ND filter can convert an over-exposed

scene, into a near-perfectly exposed scene.

Step 2. Shoot Against the Sun

In the photograph of the sun filled valley (above), you can clearly make out the sun and it’s light rays. The only way to get that effect is with an ND filter. Now if you put an actor anywhere in this frame, facing camera, their front side will be silhouetted because the light source (the sun) will be pointing to their back. Believe it or not, this is what we want. We will compensate the frontal light deficiency by using a light bounce disc (or reflector board) to bounce sunlight onto the front the person, and use the sun as a glorious backlight.

The effect of using a light disc (right), when shooting against the sun.

Voila! Two simple steps to capturing excellent shots in the sun. Now this next step is a bonus if you have the budget and a crew to set it up.

Step 3. Setup a Silk

If you’re on a show with even a low-budget, you can rig up a 12 x 12 silk and let the sunlight pass through it onto the actor(s). Unlike using a light bounce disc, you do not need to have your actors back to the sun. For close ups you can also use a 3ft shoot-though silk light disc (light will pass through), to achieve the same effect. The silk material will cut down the light, but there will still be plenty of light left to hit the actor(s) with a nice softly lit look. You can use a light bounce disc (or reflector board) to add some fill to the side of the actor facing away from the sun.

Our Video Example

Using sunlight and the tips found above, we were able to achieve the fantastic sun-drenched look of this video:



These tips can be applied to videography as well as photography. Do you have any questions or comments? Send us an e-mail or comment in the box below.

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Create Video is an award-winning Vancouver video production company.