
On clear days, the east facing solar panels wake at sunrise and generate electricity throughout the morning and mid-afternoon. The same thing happens with my solar panels. Of course, too much cloud and the entire tree is essentially shaded, so there is some amount of cloudiness that’s ideal for your favorite tree, and for plants in general. This means that a lot more leaves get indirect sunlight and so more photosynthesis occurs in the tree than would happen in direct sun. In diffuse sun, though, sunlight is scattered by the clouds and so it comes from all different directions.

#Clear day cloudy day full#
While the leaves in full sun photosynthesize great, the partially or fully shaded leaves photosynthesize poorly or not at all. In direct sun, the well defined shadows of your favorite tree not only shade the ground where you’re sitting, but they also shade other leaves. Years ago scientists hypothesized that plants might photosynthesize better on hazy days with diffuse light than they do under heavy cloud or even in bright sun, and after a bunch of tests, scientists found that the plants they studied did, in fact, photosynthesize better on hazy days. When you look down at the ground, you don’t really see individual shadows, but rather it’s somewhat darker under the tree than it is out in the open. Now, imagine you’re sitting under that same tree on a day when there are hazy, light clouds across the sky. You look down at the ground and you see well defined shadows from all the tree’s leaves. Imagine for a moment you’re sitting under your favorite tree on a clear, sunny day. I found this fascinating, because it’s essentially the same effect as something scientists have observed with respect to plants. My panels generate electricity more equally on days with high, hazy, light clouds as compared to days of direct sunlight. After watching how the solar panels generate electricity for several months now, I’ve noticed something interesting. After reviewing the rooflines and nearby trees, SolarCity’s engineers concluded that the best roofs to put the panels on were the east and west facing roofs, rather than the south facing roof.

My home is a tri-level, and given how it’s oriented in my neighborhood, its multilevel roof faces due north, south, east, and west.

Of course, you should check your histogram once in a while to make sure the light hasn't changed without you noticing, but at least you won't be guessing at dialing in exposure compensation from one shot to the next.īear in mind that the "Rule" is really a guideline. Once you have the exposure set to your liking you can then get on with shooting without constantly worrying about how your composition is affecting the metering.
#Clear day cloudy day manual#
If you have constant lighting levels, not fluctuating from one minute to the next, you can save yourself a ton of grief by shooting with manual exposure. If you Google for "Sunny 16" you will get plenty of examples returned. Obviously there are many combinations of ISO, aperture and shutter speed you can mix and match to yield the same overall exposure.įollowing on from Sunny 16 there are similar guidelines (although I have trouble remembering them) to make adjustments for different degrees of cloud cover.
#Clear day cloudy day iso#
You could open up 2 stops to f/8 and shoot at 100 ISO and 1/400, as an example.

Of course, you aren't forced to shoot at f/16. at 100 ISO you can use a shutter speed of 1/100 at 200 ISO you can use 1/200 etc. The rule is, if shooting under bright sunshine (clear day, no clouds, sun high in the sky) that if you set your aperture to f/16 your shutter speed will be the reciprocal of your ISO. There is a guideline for setting exposure under bright sunny conditions called the "Sunny 16 Rule".
