what do you do when shooting mid-day?

[Daniel_Buck]

So, looking back on some of my photographs from a few outings, and I noticed how bland my shots looked when shot mid-day. I usually don't shoot mid-day because I know the lighting isn't good, but I'll still ask the question to maybe start up a discussion on filtering when shooting B&W mid-day.

This one for example, would using a green filter help bring out the tree leaves? They just look so muddy to me, not much separation. I used a polarizer to darken the sky, but no extra filtering on this one I believe.

How would yall do it, if you were shooting mid-day with trees, sky, ground, a scene similar to this one:

[Ken Lee]

Some people don't even bother shooting outdoors at that time, except when making images in the shade, like portraits or flowers.

Every time of day has its own feeling. In classical Indian music, the different Ragas or melodies, are to be played only during certain muhurthas, or 45-minute periods. The word Raga means color or feeling. It's an old concept, highly developed.

I wouldn't be surprised if other mature cultures, developed similar schemas. Today we know about the influence of the seasons: this is just a further nuance, you might say.

No doubt great masterpieces have been made under noon day Sun, but it's not for everyone.

[Bosaiya]

Siesta-time. Or as Ken suggests, things that do well in the available shade.

Of course it really depends on what you're going for and what's around you. A typical pastoral tree-covered landscape-type shot might not be well suited for those conditions whereas a scorching desert along the lines of a Sergio Leone movie might be perfect. Is there something else you can be doing other than shooting during that time?

Raga? Isn't that what the nutty girlfriend in Spinal Tap listens to?

[Preston]

Daniel,

A green filter will help in such situations because it will lighten the tone of the leaves and will not darken blue. The shadows under a blue sky will have a high blue component, so any filter that darkens blue will will cause the shadows to be darker. You could also use a yellow filter if you want to darken a sky a bit. This will have less of an effect on the shadow values than a polarizer, and will help with tonal separation.

A polarizer will affect the shadows as it does the blue sky; it will darken them.

An option may be to use an orthochromatic film. It will give lively tones to green foliage. However, since ortho is not blue-sensitive, skies will be very light in tone. The affect could be very nice depending upon subject matter. I don't know if Ortho is still available, but if so, it may be fun to experiment with it.

-Preston

[Daniel_Buck]

well, I know it's not the best time to shoot, and as I said I usually try to avoid it.

I was more looking for suggestions to help out the mid-day lighting when I do find myself at a scene like this where I will not be there earlier or later in the day, but I'd still like a shot of the scene, which is exactly what the shot above was, I wanted a shot of the scene, but was not able to stay for very long.

(edit) thanks preston, for your suggestions :-) If I don't have ortho with me, maybe a blue filter might do something interesting?

[Robert Hughes]

But even Serio Leone would have banks of reflectors and arc lights at midday to fill in the squinty face of the Man With No Name.

[Bosaiya]

And he'd pull it off with panache, too!

Not every situation has a workable solution. Sometimes you have to make compromises and live with the less-than-ideal results. I don't think filters are going to get you what you're after, but they may get you better than nothing.

[Ken Lee]

I daresay that some of the images shown on this forum, would look much nicer, if only they were shot at less ho-hum times of day.

[Ivan J. Eberle]

Noon in June can be dull indeed. But I welcome storm-clearing light and cloudy-bright (-1.5 stops from Sunny 16) at any time of day. An individual cloud passing over the sun can be a great light modifier, so long as you're concentrating on details and not trying to shoot a panorama.

Modifying the light can be as simple as a collapsible reflector or a translucent diffuser or using fill flash. X-sync at leaf shutter speeds can be really useful when combined with slow films and powerful flash, to separate a human subject from the background, even at midday.

I shoot color exclusively. If I've got to shoot under a bald blue sky I'll do it with neg film or digital, as the blue shadow crossovers are much harder to deal with shooting transparency film. Forget shooting certain emulsions in the middle of the day, their dynamic range simply won't handle it. Fujichrome Velvia 50 and Provia readily come to mind.

Around here the light gets too harsh within a half an hour of sunrise on summer mornings. A polarizer can be useful to knock down harsh reflections and to bring blown out highlights on leaves back into range. Later in the morning, however, the quality of light improves all by itself as the sun rises above the marine layer when natural polarization and a better saturated sky 90˚ opposite the sun returns at about 10AM. It happens again about 3 or 4 in the afternoon, depending on the season and the angle of the sun, but it only happens in one quadrant of the sky at a time.

[Donald Miller]

Surprising as it may seem there are some wonderful photographs that have been made at midday. Michael Smith has made a number of his beautiful images at midday in full sunlight. Ansel made several. One that I recall is looking outward from a darkened interior.

The problem for you Daniel is that you have an adequate density range on the negative from shadow to highlight but that leaves your shadows and midtones lumped down on an area of the films curve that not much in the way of separation is going on.
First I would choose my film on the basis of the linearity of it's characteristic curve. There are several that fit that bill.

Beyond the film choice, one thing that could be done is to give more exposure and use a compensating developer. This would be developers that are either highly dilute, water bath or two bath developing, or catechol based developers.

On a separate note, polarizers are not generally well favored in shooting BW because they can give some tonal variance in the sky regions. Additionally as someone else mentioned any filter that will darken the sky--typically a Y 12 or 15 will darken open shadow areas.

My experience indicates that green filters (58) do not work well to lighten foliage. This, I assume, is because this foliage emits a large amount of IR.

Donald Miller