How to Light Corporate Videos in Harsh Outdoor Sunlight: Pro Tips

We’ve all been there—the schedule says high noon, the sky is cloudless, and the sun is turning your beautiful location into a high-contrast mess of blown-out highlights and pitch-black shadows. Most videographers hide in the shade, but with the right tactics, you can make the harshest sun work for you. Here are four tips for shooting when the sun is at its most brutal………..: Tip one: Use the sun as a backlight. If you point your subject’s face directly into the sun, they’ll be squinting and their features will look flat and harsh. Instead, turn them around. Put the sun behind them to create a natural, glowing rim light that separates them from the background. Now, their face is in a consistent shadow, which is much easier to manage with your camera’s dynamic range…………: Two: Bring your own “clouds” with diffusion. Since you can’t move the sun, you have to change how it hits your subject. Use a large diffusion silk or a “scrim” held overhead. This turns that small, harsh light source into a massive, soft light, effectively mimicking the look of an overcast day. It fills in those deep “raccoon eyes” and softens skin textures instantly………….: Three: Master the “Negative Fill.” On a bright day, light bounces off everything—sidewalks, sand, white walls—filling in shadows and making the image look washed out and flat. To add drama and “shape” back into a face, place a black flag or foam board on the side of the subject opposite the sun. This “negative fill” absorbs the bounce, creating a beautiful contrast that makes the image look cinematic rather than like a home movie……: Finally, don’t leave home without your ND filters. In harsh sun, your camera is flooded with light. To keep that cinematic shallow depth of field, you’d normally need a high shutter speed, which makes motion look jittery. A Neutral Density filter acts like sunglasses for your lens, allowing you to keep your shutter at the “180-degree rule” and your aperture wide open, even in the middle of a desert……: High noon doesn’t have to mean high stress. Control the direction, soften the quality, and manage the quantity of light, and you can shoot professional content at any time of day.