For a subject as large as a playground, camera settings alone won’t fully solve harsh midday contrast. The most effective approach is to change the light rather than the settings.

Best option: shoot at a different time of day, such as early morning or later afternoon/evening, when sunlight is softer and shadows are less severe.

If you can’t change the time, shoot RAW so you capture the maximum dynamic range and have more flexibility to recover some shadow detail in post-processing. But this only helps to a point.

HDR can help with a static scene, especially if you shoot from a tripod and merge exposures, but it won’t work well if children are moving through the frame.

Lighting the shadows is another option, but for something this large it usually requires powerful off-camera lights or large reflectors, which may be impractical.

So in order of usefulness:

1. Photograph when the light is softer.
2. Use additional light/reflectors if practical.
3. Shoot RAW and carefully process shadows, understanding the result may still look artificial if pushed too far.