Shooting into the sun

Sarmad · May 23, 2015

I've always been shy of shooting into the sun, but now I realize that in order to get beautiful landscapes, one must learn the trick to shoot right into the sun. I don't have any good equipment, just a 600D with 18-55mm lens and I never get any attractive sun stars in my photos, I know you need to have the smallest possible aperture to get a good result but still I never am able to get any 'usable' photos. For instance, check this photo out I took some while ago.

The sun is looking ugly as anything.. I want something like this:

Sunstar Ocean And Sky Landscape Stock Photo Getty Images

David Kingham Fall Colors Colorado Aspens

http://static1.squarespace.com/stat...ee4b0d23446a6ea16/1397858288643/?format=1000w (original link: One Year With The Fujifilm X-E1 Adriel Henderson

It'd be great if you could point out what I'm doing wrong and what things I need to keep in mind to get better photos.

KmH · May 23, 2015

Expose for the sky.
The people in the last one are under exposed because of the back lighting, so it's hard to call that one a well made photograph.

The diffraction spikes in #1 from Getty Images offers a clue - a small lens aperture was used. The number of diffraction spikes also indicate the lens used had quite a few aperture blades.
The Getty image may be a composite of 2 shots - 1 exposed for the sky, the other exposed for the rest of the scene.
Another possibility is use of a graduated neutral density (GND) filter(s) that cut the brightness of only the sky.

The Aspens shot shows fewer diffraction spike indicating fewer aperture blades in the lens used.
IMO, the Aspens shot and your shot would have benefited had some fill lighting been used.

Derrel · May 23, 2015

Check out the Ken Rockwell articles on sunstars.

Different lenses produce different sunstar patterns. SOme of Canon's newer wide angle zooms are very good producers of sunstars.

One tip is to make sure the sun is fairly small in the frame; in your shot, you are getting both the sun itself AND the large, bright area around the sun, which with the wrong exposure, will literally "blow out", meaning overload the sensor's pixel well capacity, and cause "blooming"...this is a digital era issue, where the sun AND the surrounding areas "clip", irreversibly, unless the exposure is brief enough to ensure the pixels are not maxed out.

Sunstars

One lens that I think produces nice sunstars is the Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 Mark II. Seven diaphragm blades, producing 14 sunstar rays. Canon 16-35mm L II Review

Yzerwing · May 25, 2015

Exposure bracketing for HDR would do a lot in the picture you posted. You would need a tripod and a remote shutter release would be wise. Then of course software for HDR Photomerge.

table1349 · May 25, 2015

You could also cheat.
B W 77mm Cross Screen 8X 688 Filter 65-064423 B H Photo Video

Sarmad · May 26, 2015

Thanks KmH, Derrel and others, your tips are certainly going to help and I'm going to check those articles and when next time I'm out shooting during the golden hours I'll try to practice my sunstars and flares.

What I hate mostly about my photos is the "quality" of the sun, I deduce the following bad things in this photograph,

BananaRepublic · May 26, 2015

You don't want to be looking at the Sun through the eye piece

MaryGreen · May 26, 2015

That's very difficult to make a good photo in the sun, but everything's possible, espessially if you know how to do it. I've recently seen an article about how to prevent few most common mistakes at Blog topic ideas for photographers KeepSnap and they propose to use a reflector or a softbox when you have problems with the illumination. Is it possible to use them in your case?

vintagesnaps · May 26, 2015

I don't know why people think it's such a great idea to shoot into the sun... it can work if it's late day but your photo looks like you're trying to shoot into sunlight that's too bright and not what you should be trying to look at directly.

I've sometimes gotten photos when the sun's going down in the evening but it takes the right time of day, such as when the sun's coming thru the trees and adjusting your vantage point to get the sun in between and along the edges of the trees.

I have an older star filter similar to the one mentioned but haven't used it much or in a long time, but that would be an option.

The sun late day can give you some nice light to work with briefly but it's gone fast so it's I think somewhat a matter of timing and luck to encounter the right circumstances. I think Keith's right, those photos linked seemed to me edited to get that look except for the last one which doesn't seem properly exposed.

Sarmad · May 26, 2015

Surely those tips are going to help, Looks like more reading and shooting is probably the only way I can stop sun from ruining my photos.

MaryGreen said:
That's very difficult to make a good photo in the sun, but everything's possible, espessially if you know how to do it. I've recently seen an article about how to prevent few most common mistakes at Blog topic ideas for photographers KeepSnap and they propose to use a reflector or a softbox when you have problems with the illumination. Is it possible to use them in your case?

I usually don't shoot any portraits so I don't think a reflector is going to make a difference, plus it's extra burden to carry around which may limit one's mobility.

wfooshee · May 28, 2015

In the sample photos you've shown as what you'd like to emulate, you should notice that they are all shot with a wider field of view than your photo, a shorter lens. Make the sun a smaller piece of the picture and it won't be able to destroy so much of the rest of the image, as the camera can actually record the rest of the image without being overwhelmed by the sunlight.

Enough other stuff and the sun can be ignored for the exposure, in other words.

Crystal clear sky in those first two helps greatly, too, as opposed to the cloudy sky diffusing and spreading the light in your image.

BananaRepublic · May 29, 2015

Clint Eastwood always kept his back to the Sun

TCampbell · May 30, 2015

To create diffraction spikes, you need to shoot at very high f-stops... f/22 or f/32. You also want a lens with an "odd" number of aperture blades (7 or 9 preferably). A lens with 7 aperture blades will create 14 diffraction spikes. A lens with 9 aperture blades will create 18 diffraction spikes. But a lens with 8 aperture blades will create only 8 diffraction spikes (surprisingly) but those 8 will appear brighter than the lens with 7 or 9.

You create diffraction spikes using lower f-stops if you thread-on a cross-screen filter. I like to use them for candle-light shots. I've also seen Photoshop effect filters, but the software generate diffraction spikes don't seem to look as good as the diffraction spikes created by the aperture blade edges or the physical cross-screen filters.

Sarmad · Jun 8, 2015

I apologize for my late response, I was just so busy past few days I had no time to take a look here.

I now think I am getting somewhat better compared to the horrible flares I used to get, I practiced a little during some travelling and here's what I got:

It was about 7 am in a summer morning, I tried to reduce the intensity of the sun by using a tree to block some off the light and using a small aperture of f 16 and exposure compensation of -1, I didn't think I needed to use HDR here since I can just slide up shadows in Lightroom and tbh I don't care about the highlights in the sky at this point.

This was taken roughly at 7 am too, here the sun was intense and there was nothing to block it so I used exposure compensation at about -5 (not sure). Here the sun is not very sharp since it mainly focused on the water but as I used an aperture f22, I think it shouldn't have affected the sun so softness is probably due to diffraction. I personally think that I shouldn't move up to shooting into the sun just yet when I don't have any lens other than my kit lens and also no filters.