It's worth just fiddling with the lighting. I've noticed that if you're looking from the wrong direction, relative to the main lights, you do get the effect you describe. The default sets are not good for all-round viewing, but you don't need a lot of lights if you arrange them for the render you're planning. Unless you want in-scene light-sources, the default global lights can replace what would be a lot of light sources out-of-shot on a film set. Don't forget the colour of the lights. It's tricky to do colour temperature well with RGB, but a clear sky is going to put significant blue light into shadows, compared to the yellowish sunlight. And then our eyes adjust the whole scene so we "see" white light.