Watching the sun go down

[Autumn]

Here is another I took when wandering on the beach as the sun was going down.

Obviously, I was shooting towards the sun, (without filters).

Can anyone tell me what the diamond shapes are near the sun's rays? I assume it is some sort of reflection. Also how can it be avoided. They appeared on several of my pics even when I used a filter.

Comments welcome.

[Autumn]

Re: Two more from Majorca

Same beach but a morning shot. This time using a No 8 ND filter.

Never having used a filter before on a shot like this, I was experimenting.

Again comments welcome please.

[Bearface]

Re: Two more from Majorca

Here is another I took when wandering on the beach as the sun was going down.

Obviously, I was shooting towards the sun, (without filters).

Can anyone tell me what the diamond shapes are near the sun's rays? I assume it is some sort of reflection. Also how can it be avoided. They appeared on several of my pics even when I used a filter.

Comments welcome.

Hi. It's called lens flare, and it's caused by powerful rays of stray light entering your lens and bouncing around inside - it usually occurs when you're shooting into harsh light, particularly sunlight. The polygonal shapes are the shape of the lens iris, which is made of up 'leaves' of metal which overlap and which are usually are adjusted via the camera body to change the aperture setting. You'll often see coloured spots and occasionally smears of low contrast too - they're all symptomatic of lens flare.

You solve the problem by fitting a lens hood, which is designed to both block and absorb these errant rays, but you can also make little 'flags' with bits of card or even your free hand. Once you have framed your shot, you'll usually be aware of any lens flare through the viewfinder. Try placing your hand ahead of the lens (to one side or the other) between it and the light source, and you should quickly be able to see if you can block the flare..........just make sure you don't get your hand (or the card) in shot!

Love your photos, BTW - very moody and romantic. The second one is lacking a bit of shadow detail (for me), but this may be down to your filter. If you allow for the loss of light caused by the filter by adusting your camera, you should find that it all balances out. Using filters can be a bit fiddly and a bit of trial and error is sometimes par for the course, but you seem to be doing just fine

[Autumn]

Re: Watching the sun go down

Thanks very much for your reply Tim. I do have a lens hood for the camera I was using a Fuji Finepix S9500 (I don't have a DSLR!), but had to remove it to fit the filter!

As you say, the flare can be seen through the viefinder, so next time, I will try to shade it off with my hand.

[Caz]

Re: Watching the sun go down

I like both of these, particularly the second, although I might have been tempted to try to lighten the cliffs a little.

And thanks to Tim for the explanation - I've got a couple of shots with lens flares from a recent visit to Spain.... a bit of a so-and-so when it's in the middle of a statue!