"Rising Sun" Vietnam - a photo on Flickriver

Using the sun.

Hi all! Sorry about my lack of posting and commenting lately. I am going crazy trying to get things in order for my upcoming Asia trip. I will try to make it around to everyone's stream in the next few days.

I wanted to mention briefly a few ideas on using the sun in your photographs to add that extra something. The most commonly used and maybe most interesting way to use the sun is to make a sun star. This is a great trick because it is fairly easy to pull off, and can be used almost anytime you have a sunny sky. The idea is simply to position yourself (camera) in a way that the sun is about 90% blocked by an object you also want in your photo. This could be a building, a tree, a rock, or even the horizon or clouds like shown in the second image in the comments. Although you can't really see the star with your eye, you can move your head or camera side to side once you're close and see the sun completely disappear behind the object and with only an inch or two of movement watch it reappear. You want to be able to see the sun through the finder, but just barely. This is how you avoid unwanted ghosts and off color. Once you have your camera positioned (this is easier with a tripod, but not mandatory) you will need to set a small aperture ( larger F number like f18 or f22) and the lens will do the rest. At this point you can play with your exposure compensation button (check you manual or Google that if you don't know what it is. It is important!!) to get the exposure just right depending what you are trying to express in the image. This trick can really add some "magic" to your photography.

You can also use the sun in an image like I have above. This is much harder because you have to have just the right circumstances to pull it off. Normally this shot would not be possible, but in this instance there was a very thick haze in the sky that blocked much of sun's intensity. I also had to use a graduated neutral density filter to help hold the sun back. You can shoot the full sun in the frame in this way when there is a wildfire near by, thick fog that is just breaking up allowing the sun to come through slightly, or in other atmospheric conditions that diffuse the sun but don't block it entirely. You can also underexpose a considerable amount to make a silhouette with your subject and not blow the sun even on a normal day as in the bottom image.

FYI, I have heard that you can damage your camera if you leave the lens facing toward the sun for to long. I have no idea how long it would take to do damage, or if this is really true or not, as I have had zero problems with it and I shoot the sun in my images all the time. That said, I don't set my tripod up with the lens pointed at the sun and leave it there for five minutes either;)

Not HDR. I used a 3 stop Graduated Neutral Density filter and processed in Lightroom.

Thanks for stopping in!

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Taken in: Vietnam (show map)

Taken on: September 21, 2009

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Camera: Nikon D700, f/8.0, 1/800 sec, 300mm, ISO 200 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D700
Lens:	70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6
Aperture:	f/8.0
Exposure Time:	0.001 sec (1/800)
Focal Length:	300mm
ISO:	200
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Manual
Light Source:	Cloudy
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Ver.1.00
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