Shooting into the Light

[PhotoTurtle]

I was out yesterday taking some photos around town. I am wanting to play with light and shadow for one of my final project ideas. Anyway with my film camera I can pretty much shoot towards the direction of the light and see what it is I am trying to photograph without much of a problem.

I switch to my digital camera to take the same picture and I run into sun glare making it almost impossible to even see the screen. Is there a way to shoot with a digital camera facing the light that doesn't blind me so I can see what I am shooting?

Here's a couple of shots from the other day, I am not sure what that light is in the bottom of the first and third picture.

My digital camera btw is a Canon power shot.

I am open to any tips and suggestions on how to shoot towards the light.

 

[Vautrin]

The light at the bottom of the picture is called a lens flare. Basically if you have a really bright light (like the sun) it can create an optical illusion.

Shooting into the light is really difficult to get the correct exposure. That's why the top of your photo is bright white. There's so much light it's overwhelmed your camera, so instead of seeing the blue sky with a sun (like you see looking that direction) you see a white sky with a bit of blue.

What are you trying to do? Get just the sky exposed correctly with dark shadows in the background? Get an even exposure?

Try googling HDR and exposure it might help.

 

[gsgary]

You mean Contre Jour

 

[dannylightning]

Do you use a lens hood, those seem to help get rid of lens flair..

also if you have some kind of filter on your lens it could cause lens flair. I notice when I have a UV filter on my lens and I am taking night shots with long exposure I get weird colored lens flairs. same thing can happen in the sun.

correct exposure can be hard to get when shooting directly in the sun, I have had a few nice pics ruined because they were so washed out from the sun even though the light meter said the exposure was correct. that does not happen often but it had happened to me a few times.

 

[Designer]

Is there a way to shoot with a digital camera facing the light that doesn't blind me so I can see what I am shooting?

That is tough. Nearly impossible, but something that will help is to make enough shade around the camera so you can see the screen. Carry a light-proof cloth that you can throw over your head and the top of the camera. Gather in the cloth at the bottom to close off the light as much as you can. It might look kinda dorky, but at least you'll be able to see the screen.

 

[PhotoTurtle]

With my film photos I want silhouettes with the sun behind them. With the digital I am just trying to figure out if I can get the same effect.

 

[dennybeall]

You're pointing the camera at the sun and the camera is adjusting exposure to what it sees. Still won't be able to handle direct sun.
If you can get the bright part of the sun behind your subject, then hold up your hand in front of the camera and adjust exposure to take that picture, fix that exposure, take down your hand and shoot. Your subject will be exposed correctly with the background blown completely out. Set between that and the auto settings and you'll find your silhouettes.

 

[wfooshee]

Lens quality is much more important in shots like these, too. That much light is going to scatter around all over the place between the glass elements, which is what creates the glare effect, and the flare (the false sun at the bottom) is the sun being reflected off of the surface of a piece of glass.

You'll see high-quality lenses described has being coated, multi-coated, etc. That's what the lens coating is for. The inside of the lens barrel has to be as black as possible, too, so the lens itself doesn't light up like a room with the lights turned on.

All of that said, I don't know what manual override you have available on the Powershot, but all of these would have been closer to what you were looking for with reduced exposure. If the meter says it's going at 1/1000 at f:8, then manually set to f:11 or f:16 and see how it looks.

Finally, you may need some post-processing to get what you want. For this shot at my son's wedding, I used a gradient layer to darken the sky, along with a couple of level adjustments overall. First is out of camera, second is after post.

 

[BananaRepublic]

I was out yesterday taking some photos around town. I am wanting to play with light and shadow for one of my final project ideas. Anyway with my film camera I can pretty much shoot towards the direction of the light and see what it is I am trying to photograph without much of a problem.

I switch to my digital camera to take the same picture and I run into sun glare making it almost impossible to even see the screen. Is there a way to shoot with a digital camera facing the light that doesn't blind me so I can see what I am shooting?

Here's a couple of shots from the other day, I am not sure what that light is in the bottom of the first and third picture.

My digital camera btw is a Canon power shot.

I am open to any tips and suggestions on how to shoot towards the light.

Gun fighters always kept there back to the sun

 

[Village Idiot]

And this is what happens when you tell someone to shoot into the light when they don't know how to properly correct for it.

 

[Braineack]

With my film photos I want silhouettes with the sun behind them. With the digital I am just trying to figure out if I can get the same effect.

Don't use matrix metering.

your camera overexposed the sky in order to bring all the dark shadows back to gray.

If you want to make silhouettes, then you need to expose for the brightest part of the scene in spot mode. This will increase your shutter speed/aperture significantly (to lower the exposure on the light) and bring pretty much everything else to black.

 

[Tailgunner]

If you're not using a UV filter on your film, you should try it...they don't do much good on a DSLR though. That and try not aiming directly at the sun and using a lens hood. Also, I can't tell what F-stop you're using, but I would stop it down, check out the Sunny 16 rule..maybe even stop it down more.