Including the Sun in Landscape & Nature Photos
We all know that dramatic light can make or break a photograph...light is everything. But what about including the sun itself, not just it's light, in a photograph? How do you go about doing that?
Well there are a couple of things to consider. First is your exposure. The sun is bright, very bright, which means it is going to freak your camera's light meter out most of the time. This typically results in underexposures and dark photos. You see this a lot in sunsets. The picture below is a good example of this, notice how the foreground is completely black? The bright sun has caused the camera's meter to underexpose the scene. How do you deal with this? Simply meter the scene without the sun in the frame, recompose and take the picture.
How do you meter the scene without the sun in the frame? If your camera is on (and "awake") it is metering (reading) light. So when you are about to take that gorgeous sunset photo and you don't want the picture to come out underexposed, point your camera at a section of the sky without the sun in it. What you do next depends on how you are using your camera. If you are shooting in manual mode (M on most cameras) simply center the light meter on zero by adjusting your f-stop and shutter speed. You need to consider what tonality the sky is where you are reading the light from and make any adjustments based on it. Next recompose the scene to include the sun and shoot. If you are using a semi-manual mode like aperture or shutter speed priority you will need to meter the scene without the sun in the frame and use the exposure lock feature of your camera...this stores the current exposure settings in the camera for a set amount of time, like 6 seconds. During that time, you need to recompose and shoot. The examples below show 2 scenes, the one on the left metered with the sun in the scene and the one on the right metered from the sky to the left of the sun.
The next issue you have to deal with in photographing the sun is that of dynamic range. The human eye is capable of seeing a much greater range of stops than any camera. What this means is that even though you can see a scene with details in the shadows and highlights, your camera may not be able to record all that detail. This can be seen in the first example of the sunset over the river above. I could see the details in the sky and the details in the ground on my side of the river when I took that photo. However, my camera did not have the dynamic range to record both detail in the sky and detail in the foreground. What to do about this?
Well you have several options. You can try to use split neutral density filters (filters which are dark on one part and clear on the other) to balance the light in the scene. You can take 2 exposures and combine them after the fact or you can shoot several exposures and combine them into an HDR (i.e. High Dynamic Range) image. If you are shooting a RAW format, you can try to process the file twice, once for the highlights and once for the shadows and combine them. The 3 photos shown below are examples of shooting a scene with multiple exposures and combining them into 1 to overcome the problem of limited dynamic range (a problem not limited to photographs including the sun!).
The third factor to consider when including the sun in a photograph is what shape you want the sun to show up as. Yes that's right, you get to control the shape of the sun. If you want the sun to come out perfectly round, you need to shoot with your lens wide open (set to the lowest f-stop number you can so the lens is at its maximum aperture). This is what was done with this photo of the flowers isolated in front of the sun shown below. This was taken with a 400mm f5.6 lens set at, yup you guessed it, f5.6.
So what other shape would you want the sun in and how would you get it in that shape? Well you go to the other end of the f-stop range, you stop your lens all the way down (to the largest f-stop number). This produces a "star burst" pattern of the sun. An example of this is shown to the left. As you stop the lens down (close the aperture and go to larger f-stop numbers) this sun progressively takes on the shape of the inside of your lens until at small openings (large f-stop numbers) you get severe diffraction spikes and this cool pattern from the sun. This can be particularly effective when you "hide" the sun right at the edge of something, say a hill top or tree branch.
You need to be careful if you want a perfectly round sun that you shoot with your lens truly wide open at the lowest f-stop number you can get. Even slight deviations from this can produce a less than perfect circle of the sun as the example below shows. This was shot at f4 using a lens that could have gone to f2.8. I got sloppy and wasn't paying enough attention to my settings. As you can see, the sun has started to take on the look of the inside opening of the lens and is no longer perfectly round.
When you are shooting directly at the sun like this you are going to have problems with lens flare, which is caused by light striking the glass on the front of your lens directly. You can try and minimize this by shading the front of the lens with your lens hood, a hat, or your hand (watch out if your camera doesn't have a 100% viewfinder as you might think your hand is out of the photo only to find out afterward that it wasn't). This usually doesn't work well when shooting straight into the sun though. Sometimes you can shift your position slightly and eliminate some lens flare. Zoom lenses are worse about flare than primes, and telephotos usually aren't as bad as wide angle lenses. Sometimes lens flare looks good, sometimes it doesn't. You may have to remove it after the shot.
Controlling the size of the sun is also something you will need to consider. Like anything else, a telephoto can make the sun appear much larger in the frame than a wide angle lens. A good macro lens can also help you get the sun to appear large in the frame by letting you get very close to your subject in the foreground thus filling the frame with the sun. The photo below was shot with a 400mm telephoto to emphasize the sun,
while this one was shot with at 24mm show both the sun and the fire.
Including the sun in your landscape and nature photographs is an interesting way to add drama and excitement to your photographs. Conditions won't always be right to include the sun in your photographs, but that is business as normal for landscape and nature photography...you have to work with what you are given.
You also need to be safe and not damage your eyes trying to include the sun. Remember to not look directly at the sun! So how do you include the sun in a photograph without looking directly at it? Well for one, recognizing the right conditions (a not so bright sunset) and experience. You can also use viewing accessories that are commonly used for viewing solar eclipses. Above all else, keep your eyes safe!!
Below is the first photograph I took that included the sun. It was a beautiful evening and conditions were right for the sun to go down for the day as a soft round orb not much brighter than the surrounding sky. After this picture, I was hooked!
Disclaimer: Never, ever look directly at the sun! It can cause serious eye damage. Please see this link for more on eye protection and safety. If you aren't sure if you can photograph the sun without damaging your eyes, don't try it! Pointing your camera directly at the sun in some circumstances may also damage your camera. Make sure you know the limits of your equipment before trying to include the sun in any of your photographs.
Well there are a couple of things to consider. First is your exposure. The sun is bright, very bright, which means it is going to freak your camera's light meter out most of the time. This typically results in underexposures and dark photos. You see this a lot in sunsets. The picture below is a good example of this, notice how the foreground is completely black? The bright sun has caused the camera's meter to underexpose the scene. How do you deal with this? Simply meter the scene without the sun in the frame, recompose and take the picture.
How do you meter the scene without the sun in the frame? If your camera is on (and "awake") it is metering (reading) light. So when you are about to take that gorgeous sunset photo and you don't want the picture to come out underexposed, point your camera at a section of the sky without the sun in it. What you do next depends on how you are using your camera. If you are shooting in manual mode (M on most cameras) simply center the light meter on zero by adjusting your f-stop and shutter speed. You need to consider what tonality the sky is where you are reading the light from and make any adjustments based on it. Next recompose the scene to include the sun and shoot. If you are using a semi-manual mode like aperture or shutter speed priority you will need to meter the scene without the sun in the frame and use the exposure lock feature of your camera...this stores the current exposure settings in the camera for a set amount of time, like 6 seconds. During that time, you need to recompose and shoot. The examples below show 2 scenes, the one on the left metered with the sun in the scene and the one on the right metered from the sky to the left of the sun.
The next issue you have to deal with in photographing the sun is that of dynamic range. The human eye is capable of seeing a much greater range of stops than any camera. What this means is that even though you can see a scene with details in the shadows and highlights, your camera may not be able to record all that detail. This can be seen in the first example of the sunset over the river above. I could see the details in the sky and the details in the ground on my side of the river when I took that photo. However, my camera did not have the dynamic range to record both detail in the sky and detail in the foreground. What to do about this?
Well you have several options. You can try to use split neutral density filters (filters which are dark on one part and clear on the other) to balance the light in the scene. You can take 2 exposures and combine them after the fact or you can shoot several exposures and combine them into an HDR (i.e. High Dynamic Range) image. If you are shooting a RAW format, you can try to process the file twice, once for the highlights and once for the shadows and combine them. The 3 photos shown below are examples of shooting a scene with multiple exposures and combining them into 1 to overcome the problem of limited dynamic range (a problem not limited to photographs including the sun!).
The third factor to consider when including the sun in a photograph is what shape you want the sun to show up as. Yes that's right, you get to control the shape of the sun. If you want the sun to come out perfectly round, you need to shoot with your lens wide open (set to the lowest f-stop number you can so the lens is at its maximum aperture). This is what was done with this photo of the flowers isolated in front of the sun shown below. This was taken with a 400mm f5.6 lens set at, yup you guessed it, f5.6.
So what other shape would you want the sun in and how would you get it in that shape? Well you go to the other end of the f-stop range, you stop your lens all the way down (to the largest f-stop number). This produces a "star burst" pattern of the sun. An example of this is shown to the left. As you stop the lens down (close the aperture and go to larger f-stop numbers) this sun progressively takes on the shape of the inside of your lens until at small openings (large f-stop numbers) you get severe diffraction spikes and this cool pattern from the sun. This can be particularly effective when you "hide" the sun right at the edge of something, say a hill top or tree branch.
You need to be careful if you want a perfectly round sun that you shoot with your lens truly wide open at the lowest f-stop number you can get. Even slight deviations from this can produce a less than perfect circle of the sun as the example below shows. This was shot at f4 using a lens that could have gone to f2.8. I got sloppy and wasn't paying enough attention to my settings. As you can see, the sun has started to take on the look of the inside opening of the lens and is no longer perfectly round.
When you are shooting directly at the sun like this you are going to have problems with lens flare, which is caused by light striking the glass on the front of your lens directly. You can try and minimize this by shading the front of the lens with your lens hood, a hat, or your hand (watch out if your camera doesn't have a 100% viewfinder as you might think your hand is out of the photo only to find out afterward that it wasn't). This usually doesn't work well when shooting straight into the sun though. Sometimes you can shift your position slightly and eliminate some lens flare. Zoom lenses are worse about flare than primes, and telephotos usually aren't as bad as wide angle lenses. Sometimes lens flare looks good, sometimes it doesn't. You may have to remove it after the shot.
Controlling the size of the sun is also something you will need to consider. Like anything else, a telephoto can make the sun appear much larger in the frame than a wide angle lens. A good macro lens can also help you get the sun to appear large in the frame by letting you get very close to your subject in the foreground thus filling the frame with the sun. The photo below was shot with a 400mm telephoto to emphasize the sun,
while this one was shot with at 24mm show both the sun and the fire.
Including the sun in your landscape and nature photographs is an interesting way to add drama and excitement to your photographs. Conditions won't always be right to include the sun in your photographs, but that is business as normal for landscape and nature photography...you have to work with what you are given.You also need to be safe and not damage your eyes trying to include the sun. Remember to not look directly at the sun! So how do you include the sun in a photograph without looking directly at it? Well for one, recognizing the right conditions (a not so bright sunset) and experience. You can also use viewing accessories that are commonly used for viewing solar eclipses. Above all else, keep your eyes safe!!
Below is the first photograph I took that included the sun. It was a beautiful evening and conditions were right for the sun to go down for the day as a soft round orb not much brighter than the surrounding sky. After this picture, I was hooked!
Disclaimer: Never, ever look directly at the sun! It can cause serious eye damage. Please see this link for more on eye protection and safety. If you aren't sure if you can photograph the sun without damaging your eyes, don't try it! Pointing your camera directly at the sun in some circumstances may also damage your camera. Make sure you know the limits of your equipment before trying to include the sun in any of your photographs.
Labels: how to, landscape, nature, photography, sun, sunset, technique
posted by Scott at
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