Photography tip: Using sun flare

Sun flare is a phenomenon where direct sunlight comes into contact with the many pieces of glass in your lens, and then creates mostly unwanted flares and reflections in your photographs. The way to avoid sun flare is to use your lens's hood, or simply place your hand in front and to the side of the lens, thus blocking the direct rays of the sun from coming into contact with your lens surface.

There are a few times when allowing sun flare can be good for a photograph. One memorable example is the cover photograph of Sophia Coppola's film "The Virgin Suicides". Take a look at the DVD jacket the next time you are in a video rental store. In the case of this attached image of the clouds, I waited until the sun was just coming out from behind the cloud and took the shot. I knew that because of the great intensity of the sun, the camera would automatically reduce the exposure, making the background very dark and dramatic.

This type of shot can be very dangerous to your eyes, so I would advise the following: Wear sunglasses, and have your camera on auto exposure. The only time you should be looking through the lens is to quickly get the right composition, then close your eyes and take the shot. Allow your camera to choose the exposure for you, and you might be surprised at the bold images that are a result. If you try the same image a number of times you will find that the sun flare always changes, because your composition will change slightly. Feel free to "bracket" your photos, which is taking many different shots at different exposures. You can lighten or darken your images even when the camera is set on auto exposure. The setting is called Exposure Compensation, and it usually identified with a symbol like this: +/-

Finally, this is the type of shot where older or cheaper lenses may be better, as they do not have as much anti-flare coating on the lens glass (compared to pro lenses). Again, avoid looking at the sun directly when composing the shot . . . you can do a lot of damage to your eyes.

Thanks to professional photographer Mark Hemmings (www.markhemmings.com) for writing this photo tip.