I regard as "sunlight" only when the sun is shining directly on the plant, or with high-efficiency reflection, such as from a mirror or one of those mirror-fabrics (sort of like shiny tinfoil) they make for garden purposes like increasing light. I realize that planting against a white wall will create a microclimate of greater light on the plant than if it were planted against a black wall or just standing alone in a field. I've been using that principle to my advantage with sage and sunflowers. There's light shade, partial shade and deep shade. To me, light shade is heavily dappled with sunlight, like sunlight through a tree that doesn't have a dense canopy. Partial shade means that the plant gets less than 6 hours of sunlight shining directly on it. Deep shade means the plant isn't even getting dappled sunlight, because the tree canopy is too dense, or the sun is blocked by a solid barrier (like a building). A plant can have both light and partial shade, or both deep and partial shade - like if it has 4 hours of direct sunlight shining on it and the rest of the day it has most of the sun screened by a tree. One of the things I did for my garden area one sunny weekend was make a drawing of the garden plot, copy it 12 times, then sketch in the shade lines every hour. That way I could tell exactly how much sunlight a particular area got on a sunny day, at a certain time of year. I repeated it a couple other times in the season and now I keep those sheets in my garden notebook. It led me to abandon a bed that hadn't been doing well because I figured out why - it was fully shaded at the base, so the vining crops I kept trying to grow there weren't making it up to the sun. Interestingly the morning glory weeds were doing great there, so now I grow morning glories there. Maybe next year I'll plant asparagus there, because it can tolerate shade, especially at first, until it gets tall and ferny (which would be when it was in the sun).

I get plenty of growth, especially in the cherry tomato department, with 5-8 hrs. As the plants grow upwards they start getting more light (high fence blocks the sun). I feel like the morning and evening shade really helps them to recooperate on those hot summer days. But I also think they ripen slower. It's not so much the number of fruit for me as it is how quickly they ripen. My plants actually beat out my mothers plants in terms of growth and she had full sun all day. But after they became laden with fruit hers began ripening faster. But basiclaly it's fine to grow it in 5-6 hrs, but 8 or more is definately preferrable. Once you get 12+ hours I think that can start to be a little much in the summer.

For 8 summers, I grew beefsteak and cherry tomatoes right up against the east side of a brick house in NE Illinois. (On Google Maps, the house does face directly west, so that bed received only morning sun, no sun from the south during the day.) I was brought up to prune tomatoes to one stem, so these were narrow plants, and probably planted about 6-8" from the foundation. They had sun all morning until the sun was overhead and the house began to shade that bed. So obviously this was only 6-7 hours of sun, max -- and much less at the end of the season. I don't remember them being leggy; they did grow taller than I am, but I'm only 5'2", so that's not difficult! They didn't bear a whole lot of fruit, and the lower fruit tended to be stolen by thirsty raccoons. But other than that -- and a bit of Septoria leaf spot at least one year -- the plants seemed happy. Besides direct sun and shade, there's also bright shade. For instance, daylilies aren't supposed to bloom well unless they receive at least 6 hours of direct sunlight. Mine used to be shaded by the house in the morning and by maples in the afternoon. About noon they got an hour or so of direct sun. They bloomed quite happily. I used to say, "But it's bright shade" -- and later read that there is such a thing. So I would say it depends how your tomatoes have done in the area that receives 5 hours of direct sunlight. Perhaps you could experiment: grow some in the current area, put some others in the sunnier area, then compare them -- and of course report back to us!

vickikim, I would not transplant! Transplanting puts a lot of strain on the plant, and at this stage in the growing season, your plant will waste energy on acclimating to its new spot, rather than producing fruit. I would leave them where they are, and use a liquid fertilizer that is high in phosphorus. Phosphorus (or phosphate, when bonded with oxygen) emphasizes on the roots, and the stronger and denser your roots are beneath the soil, the more and bigger tomatoes the plant can support on top. I would focus on that, now until harvest! Harlow