How to Photogrpah Sports in Bright Sunlight

One of the problems I faced when I started out was how to deal with sports photography in bright sunlight.  Logically, I thought the bright sun would give the best pictures.  But I was wrong.  I found heavy shadows on the players faces and overexposed bright white uniforms were over powering my photographs.  In a Southern California summer I found this occurred from about noon until 7 pm.  The time that most summer sports events took place.

Having no formal training, I did not know the proper photography terms so I spent weeks searching the internet trying to learn how to correct these problems.  I thought highlights referred to what girls did to their hair.  The term blown out highlights was completely lost on me.


A lot of trial and error and research on various blogs and I began to figure some things out.  Don't get me wrong, I still have a lot to learn.  But I want to pass on some of the things I have learned so far.

When you take photographs in bright sunlight, it is difficult to expose the entire image properly.  In order to get the brightest part of the picture properly exposed, it means the darker part of the picture will be underexposed, or to dark.

Conversely to get the darker part of the picture properly exposed that means the brighter part of the picture will be to bright, or overexposed (blown out).

I found this to be very difficult to deal with especially in sports photography.  I tried Canon, Nikon and Sony cameras thinking it was the camera body.  Then different lenses thinking it was a lens issue.  Then I finally realized it was not an equipment issue, its the reality of photography.

But that does not mean you have to just live with these issue.  There is a way to fix it, just not with the camera.

Most photographers will admit they rarely take a perfect picture.  Almost all photographers edit their images.  Not heavily, but slight adjustments to make it perfect.

Most photographers do most of their photo editing not in Photoshop, but in a program called Lightroom.  While most pros have Photoshop and know how to use it, for the vast majority of image editing Lightroom is much faster and easier to use.  And for those just starting out, Lightroom is significantly cheaper to buy.

Now, having said that no photo editing program can save a bad picture.  You have to at least be close to the proper exposure.  The picture still has to be in focus.  But you can make some minor (and occasionally major adjustments) using a program like Lightroom.

The three main adjustments I use for most of my day time sports photography in Lightroom is exposure, highlights and shadows.

For nighttime sports photography I have a lot less image editing, primarily I just use exposure and color correction.

So what are blown out highlights?  It is the overexposed bright part of the picture.  You lose the details in areas of a picture that are blown out.  For example, if you take a picture of a bride in a white wedding dress in the bright sun and you expose the picture for the brides face, you will lose all the details in the dress and it will just appear bright white.

If you expose your picture for the dress, the face will be dark from the shadows.

Same thing with sports.  Hats cast heavy shadows on the face.  So I slightly overexpose the picture so the face has detail.  Then in Lightroom, I turn the highlights down to keep the white uniforms from over powering the picture.  If I have to I adjust the shadow detail to reduce the shadows on the face.  If necessary I also adjust the overall exposure of the photograph.

The first picture of the swimmer is how the picture came out of the camera.  Water reflects the light and overexposes pictures.  But because at this swim meet the sun was directly overhead, it cast a heavy shadow on the swimmers faces.  So I used some shadow reduction to lighten the face.

In these pictures notice how white the batters pants are.  It over powers the picture so I reduced the highlights to make the picture less bright. 

It will take some trial and error to figure out how much to overexpose the picture so the details are still salvageable.  But as long as you are close, even underexposed you can do a lot to make your picture better.

If you shoot in Raw mode it allows you more freedom in recovering shadows and blown out highlights.  JPEG gives you less ability, but it is still possible.

Personally I shoot primarily in JPEG because I can shoot faster and the file sizes are smaller.  But in difficult lighting I shoot in Raw mode.

With just a little practice you will find your sports photos will end up a lot better.