At least one of the Vitamin D authorities that I have read is of the opinion that oral Vitamin D supplements are inferior to Sunlight/skin internally generated vitamin D. While I give that some credence, I have recently increased my oral D from 2000IU to 4000IU per day while still spending a lot of time on the trail (Central TX). The quoted opinion is from Dr. Michael F. Holick, Ph.D, M.D. in "The Vitamin D Solution" But was from memory, not verbatim.
Probably because vitamin D is just one part of the enormously complicated interaction between sunlight and our immune systems.