How To Shoot In Harsh Lighting Conditions Without a ND Filter
Howdy y’all! Glad you can join me for the first blog post of this site! After a recent trip in Joshua Tree National Park with my family, I wanted to share some of my tips and tricks on how to shoot in harsh lighting conditions. In today’s article, I’ll be sharing my approach to this topic covering areas including:
Camera gear to bring
Camera setup
Post editing process
Although this isn’t meant to serve as a definite guide on how to shoot in harsh lighting conditions as there are many different styles and ways other photographers handle light, I hope you find my tools and methods helpful the next time you’re out in these types of conditions.
Before diving into our checklist of what to bring, something to note about lighting in general is that you don’t ever want to work against lighting. How to work with light is the mindset photographers need when taking great photos. Now that we got that out of the way, let’s dive into the good stuff, gear!
Camera Gear
Canon 5D MK IV
Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 Art Lens
Sigma 85mm F1.4 Art Lens
Sigma 35mm F1.4 Art Lens
Camera Dust Blower
Hexbrand Back Loader DSLR Backpack V2
For the most part, I had the 24-70mm mounted on my camera for 95% of the time I was in the park. Since it was my first time at Joshua Tree, I wanted to avoid stopping and switching lenses and risk dust getting into my camera sensor/lenses. The 24-70mm lens is such a versatile lens as it can cover many focal lengths suited for just about any type of photography. There was only one time I switched over to the 85mm to capture wildlife for the reason that I wasn’t trying to scare off the wildlife and miss out on an opportunity.
In reserve, I carry around the 35mm with me just in case I need something faster and am looking to capture more landscape shots. I didn’t use the 35mm this time around as like I mentioned before I didn’t want to risk dust getting into my gear and this focal length is covered by the 24-70mm. Overall, between all three lenses I was packing, my best bet would be to go with the 24-70mm in this case - especially if you’re going to be in environments where you want a lot of versatility while on the go.
Camera Setup
My settings:
Manual Shooting
ISO 100
Shutter Speed: Varies (1500 ~ 5000)
Aperture: Varies (2.8 ~ 3.5)
Exposure Meter: -1
Auto White Balance
Silent Continuous Shooting
Format RAW
Evaluative Metering
Back-Button Focus
When shooting in harsh lighting conditions, I usually shoot full manual mode. I prefer to have full control of the situation and make adjustments without risk of the camera changing my settings by itself. If we refer back to the camera gear checklist, notice I didn’t mention any ND filters. Although I don’t carry ND filters in my backpack, my trick when working in harsh light with minimal to no shade to diffuse the light is to underexpose my images - usually by a stop (or half the amount of light) from entering my sensor.
To achieve an underexposed image, I suggest keeping the ISO consistent at 100 then set your aperture first followed by setting your shutter speed. Since I rocked the 24-70mm for most of the trip, my aperture was consistently set at F2.8 minimum. By first adjusting the aperture and determining what I want to focus on within the frame, I can then dial my shutter speed to fine tune where along the exposure meter I want to expose for the shot.
As for the rest of the settings, I can quickly run through them as there isn’t a whole lot to expand on for now:
Silent Continuous Shooting so as to not miss the chance to capture wildlife that may be on the move.
Format RAW for more data to capture and play with in post processing.
Evaluative Metering so my camera may automatically adjust to the “right exposure”.
Back-Button Focus because I still want to retain control on when I focus without worrying about the camera hunting what to focus on.
After reviewing my settings, you may be wondering why I tend to underexpose my images. Certainly, it raises the concern that more noise may be introduced into the image when raising the shadows and blacks within post. Although this is true, the method behind this madness is because I find it much easier to play around with the shadows and the blacks vs. adjusting the highlights and whites. If I didn’t underexpose my image, then I can risk having my highlights and whites being blown out - both of which can be difficult to adjust within post. Curious as to how I edit some of my photos from the trip? Then let’s dive right into the next section!
Post Editing Process
Software of choice: Adobe Lightroom Classic
Below is a RAW image of the Joshua trees I took in Hidden Valley Nature Trail. Details as follows:
Shutter Speed: 1/3200
F2.8
ISO 100
Exposure Meter -1
Focal Length 27mm
Below is the same image, but edited:
There’s already a couple things that stand out within the edited version:
Less vignetting in the corners
More punch to the overall colors in the image
Flatter tonal contrast, but color contrast helps the image pop
Although this section isn’t meant to be a set-by-step tutorial on how to edit photos shot in harsh light, I’ll be sharing which settings specifically you want to pay extra attention to editing underexposed images.
Like I mentioned in the last section, it’s a lot easier to play with the shadows and blacks with an underexposed image than playing with the highlights and the whites. Instead of reducing the whites and the highlights which can leave the skies within your image gray while sapping away the “punch” within the shot, adjusting the shadows and blacks can help restore details within your image that may not be as apparent when going for the initial capture.
Although shadows and blacks reduce the tonal contrast of this image and make the image appear “flatter” we can compensate with the “dehaze” tool to restore some of the tonal contrast while removing some of the natural haze as well.
Another big component here would be the play with the tone curve itself. Since blacks, shadows, highlights, and whites are all capped at -100 or 100 in the basic panel, I use a simple s-curve to add a fade to the blacks while simultaneously lifting the shadows and blacks as well. After getting the s-curve how I want it, then I would adjust the basic panel sliders until I achieve the foundation I want before color grading.
To help make the image “pop” after making basic tonal adjustments is to adjust the colors. There’s a bunch of different tools within Lightroom Classic to help us insert or subtract color within our images, but the main ones I tend to use quite heavily involve the HSL panel in addition to the color grading panel.
Mainly, I would play with the saturation panel and the luminance panel with little changes to the hue panel. The reason I tend to stay away from hue is because I’m not looking to change colors into other colors. Instead, I’m focused on changing the intensity of the colors that are already present while adding more or less richness to colors where necessary. To expand on richness, when shooting in harsh light will naturally desaturate the colors that appear - hence why I focus primarily on saturation and luminance.
Finally, to round things off, I usually use the color grading panel and split my tones, usually with inserting more orange in the shadows and more blue in the highlights. Since blue and orange are opposites on the color wheel, they make a very nice compliment which helps balance out my image so the colors aren’t too funky.
Conclusion
Although there was a lot of content to cover within this blog post, I hope you find this insight helpful. For any questions or comments, please feel free to share! If you’re interested in seeing the rest of the gallery, then check out my new Joshua Tree page in the photo gallery. Until next time!
