Summer shade: best Albedo outdoor photography condition?

MagicSugar · Aug 2016

So I was about to start brushing wood stain on our fence and I noticed...there's no strong contrasty shadows and highlights on the wood panels. These pics were taken noontime, facing south but in the shade and the sun was about 75-80 degrees above (we're closer to the north pole than the equator). Only used an iphone. No postprocessing other than res down in Photoshop to post jpgs.

This is probably comedy gold but I'm not a pbr material person so I haven't noticed this before use-wise (before I was like, must only use cross-polarize filter or post-process). I'll check again in overcast winter lighting conditions and the collected snow serves as a diffusing light source..

Theoretically, same or similar results when you outdoor-shoot rusted metal or glossy objects. Re: stained panels, yeah surface started picking up highlights.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/4o/w73hs05dz83a.jpg

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/e2/c8y99dg3y3ud.jpg

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/t4/jle1mqjvp2jj.jpg

JedTheKrampus · Aug 2016

There's still AO on these textures but there's not much on the wood. I still think you should shoot with a testcard so you can correct exposure and white balance. After that it's a pretty big equipment investment to get to the point that you're doing photogrammetry and de-lighting.

Joopson · Aug 2016

Cloudy days are pretty good, too. I take any photos for photosourcing texture overlays on cloudy days. Golden hour is probably alright too, if you set the right white-balance.

Joost · Aug 2016

I photograph textures in the shade when I can't avoid it. The major downside is that the lighting varies a lot so you're constantly tweaking your camera settings and you need to use a white balance card for every shot(but you should do that anyway.) Overcast tends to give nice uniform lighting. Overcast lighting is also brighter so you can use faster shutter speeds or lower the ISO. Also obviously on sunny days you're limited to the shade, which can be frustrating if you see a nice texture somewhere.

Summer shade: best Albedo outdoor photography condition?

Replies