Exposing in sunny weather w/shadows

[DDirector]

I've ran into these problems several times before.

I'm lighting a scene outdoors (Example: on a street by skyscraper buildings) And its very sunny out.
But, there are shadows casting from the buildings. (Same as trees)

And if I were to expose for the sun, the shade would come out dark. But, if i were to expose for the shade, the highlights would be over exposed.

Is this where people use those large 20x20' silks over the actors?
What about when actors are moving around in and out of the sun/shade? How should you expose?

*Canon T2i HDSLR

 

[gonzo_entertainment]

Is this where people use those large 20x20' silks over the actors?

That and big 12K HMIs. It's a tough tough shooting situation if you don't have a lot of gear. You can try smaller diffusion on just the actor so at least their face is cut down a little. You can try to wash out the shadows a little with bounce, but you're basically trying to build a spacecraft with pliers and duct tape.

 

[Razz16mm]

This is the kind of situation where I love to use an incident light meter to help with exposure settings. Stand in the sun and take a reading with the meter aimed at camera postion. Stand in a shadow and do the same, or turn the meter 180 away from the sun and shade it with your hand to get an ambient shadow reading. The difference between the two will give you the exposure range between middle grey for shade and sun. This assumes you know approximately what your optimum daylight ISO speed reference for your camera. If the range is not too great I normally split the difference, but I prefer to allow the shadows to go darker rather than burn highlights.
Large 4x8 sheets of foam core make for cheap bounce fill to reduce the contrast range, and have the advantage of maintaining about the same fill ratio as the light changes. Experiment. It all depends on the look you want.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

...but you're basically trying to build a spacecraft with pliers and duct tape.

Oh, come on, you mean these guys really didn't build a space ship:

"Explorers"(1985)...

 

[combatentropy]

Great movie. Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix.

 

[bruce southerland]

Cinematographers like to scout their locations so they can select a time of day that will
work lighting wise. For example, shooting at a time of day when you can block the action
so that when the actors are in the sun, it is hitting them from behind. Now your exposure
can remain constant in the master shot because the light on their faces will remain in shadow.
If the actors must turn and face each other, then you can either turn them so they each
have 1/2 sun, 1/2 shade, or one actor can be in backlight(usually the woman) and the other
in full sun(usually the man)--or the camera can stay on the shadow side and shoot them both
in profile, so they are both backlit(preferable if you have no bounce or lights to fill the shadow side).
If you move in tighter on these shots, you'll be able to soften the sun with a small diffusion panel
and bounce fill with small reflectors. In any case you'll want to bring the shadow side level up a bit
so that the areas in the background that are getting full sun hold some detail.
If you're not able to bring the level on the actors up you either have to underexpose the actors a bit
to hold detail in the highlights, or let the highlights blow out.