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Photography Question 

Paul S. Fleming
 

How to keep the sun round in my images


Hi Everyone, Every time I try to shoot a shot of the sun in an image, it turns out horrible. I would like it to be round, and without flare droplets all through the photo. I shoot a Nikon D70. Any thoughts anyone? Thank you, "ps"


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December 19, 2006

 

W.
  Thoughts?

When the sun is straight overhead, there is about 20 miles of air in between you and the sun, breaking the light. If the sun is low over the horizon, there is at least many hundreds of miles of air between you and it, breaking the light.

20 miles of air has a considerably different light breaking index than many hundreds of miles of air has. The effect is visible. 1) The sun looks almost three times the size it does when it's straight overhead. 2) The color changes to red. And 3) the shape changes from round a kind of broad bottomed oval. To your eyes it shimmers. But the camera freezes the shimmering.

So if you want a perfectly round sun low over the horizon, you will probably have to fake it in Photoshop. Because reality simply isn't like that.


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December 19, 2006

 

John P. Sandstedt
  First off - the sun, just like the moon and Earth aren't necessarily round.

Second - if you point your camera directly at the sun, with all its elements and filters, why are you suprised that there's flare? It's an optical reality.

With a subject a bright as the sun, you should be shooting at fairly fast shutter speeds. That's good, because if you shoot the moon and use too long an exposure, you'll get an oval looking moon because Earth is moving. Really !!!

Unless you're prepared for the possibility of flare, don't shhot directly to the sun. Rather, offset the axis of the lens, meter off the bright sky nearby and shoot.

For real dramatic sunsets, I like to load on a polarizer and directly shoot at the sun. Clouds go black and all kinds of great things happen. But, occasionally there's that flare - caused by all that darn glass.


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December 19, 2006

 

Margie Hurwich
 
 
  The Sunset
The Sunset

Margie Hurwich

 
 
PS, the larger the aperture (smaller f-stop) the rounder the sun will be as the sun will take on the shape of the aperture opening. In this example, I used f/5.6. This created, as John mentions using, a fast shutter speed. My shutter speed was 1/800 second. Again, as John mentions, this shot was metered off of the sky just to the left of the sun. I recomposed the shot, and released the shutter. The shape is not exactly round, but better than the octogon shape that I would have gotten with a smaller aperture (larger f-stop) and slower shutter speed.


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December 19, 2006

 
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