On a sunny day, go into the shade (if you are not in the desert, of course!). In the shade and in soft diffused lighting the human subject will feel a lot more comfortable and the portrait will become more attractive and natural. If you have to take photographs in the bright sunlight, make use of the flash. This will be the right decision in such a situation. There is no shortage of lighting, but the flash will considerably illuminate the deep shadows of the nose, chin and frontal bones, it will also brighten up the eyes, and the portrait won't look so sinister. The bright daylight, which is not ideal for portraits, in combination with the light of the flash, which is not suitable for this genre either, may produce a good result in the end, because in this case the flash will play a secondary role, i.e. that of accent lighting.

The use of the flash will also be to the point when you are taking a photograph of the human subject against the sun (light). Such lighting is called back lighting. It is extremely spectacular - the human subject's brightly lit hair and accentuated silhouette make us feel charmed. But the face in this case appears very dark. The flash can correct this defect. When taking a picture of the landscape in back lighting, you may get the effect of a night photograph. But the exposure in this case should be fixed according to the colors.

The most favorable time for the photography on location is in the morning and in the evening (before sunset). At this time the sun is rather low and the whole area stands out against the horizon. Even the unattractive landscape changes greatly at this time - there appears style, scope and warm colors prevail. This time is also quite suitable for portrait photography.

It is also very important not to rely on the automatic mode of operation. The thing is that automatic cameras often tend to make mistakes - they wrongly determine the necessary exposure and your photographs will be of poor quality - too light or too dark. If you want, for example, to take a photograph of a group of men in black tuxedos using mode Р (stands for Program), what will you get in the end? The automatic camera treats black suits as a shortage of lighting and will increase the exposure; this will whiten the faces in the photo. Quite the opposite will take place if you want, for example, to take photos of women in white dresses - the faces will be underexposed and will look dirty-grey. When doing the fully automatic shooting of the landscape if the considerable part of the shot is the sky, which is as you know usually a lot brighter than the ground, the subject will be underexposed, too, i.e. it will be too dark. The light background - the shining surface of the water, a white wall, the snow, the bright sky etc. - usually causes serious exposure faults on the fully automatic shooting. The same happens with the dark background. I recommend viewing the images on the display panel of your digital camera as often as possible so as to evaluate the quality visually and to make corrections if necessary. You may as well switch to manual (M) shooting setting the exposure on your own, thereby adjusting the brightness of the shot to your liking.