Dave’s Photo Blog

Tonight I have a study in sun, glare, contrast and probably a few other things. I was shooting this evening in West Medford where there are big preparations afoot to replace railroad ties on the Lowell line. Alex and I noticed the stacks of railroad ties during one of our trips to watch the commuter trains. So we keep coming back because I know that means sooner or later some really interesting trains are going to show up. And they did, but that’s not what this post is about.

This post is about what happens when you shoot into the sun. In this case, the sun was at my 1:00 about ten or fifteen degrees above the horizon. There was a thin line of trees between me and the sun, but I could still see it shining through the leaves. I set up the camera on a tripod to take some photos of the stacks of railroad ties, but the sun was bothering me.

It’s not that it was all in my eyes and stuff. It wasn’t. But here’s the deal: I had a polarizer on and that means that I didn’t have the lens shade on, as it won’t fit around my polarizer holder. While I was looking through the viewfinder composing the shot, I couldn’t really see any impacts from shooting fairly directly at the sun. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t there. Sometimes it’s impossible to see without looking at the actual print.

So I decided to be extra careful, because I didn’t want to have them ruined and have to come back and reshoot them. That rarely happens, in my experience. (Reshooting, I mean – I am often extra careful.) So after I had taken the first shot, checked the exposure and all that good stuff, I took the second with my right hand stretched out in front of the lens.

Now here, below, are pretty much the straight photographs. I normally do a little post-processing on digital images, but the only thing I did to these was take a dust spot out of the top image.

Railroad Ties with Glare

The difference is quite significant. First, there is obviously a classic trio of sunspots on the top portion of the right-hand stack of ties. But it’s more than that. With the sun hitting the front of the lens almost head on, much of the image suffers a significant loss of contrast. Generally, you don’t use a polarizer when you are facing the sun – they work best at a 90° angle. But I went for it anyway. When you examine the photograph below, you’ll see the difference.

Railroad Ties w/Hand Shade

The method I used is pretty straightforward. I simple make my right hand flat, like a paddle. Then hold it up to the side of the lens, but out in front. Then I rotate it in toward the lens until I can see my own blurry fingers in the viewfinder. Then I move it out again a fair bit past the point where I lose sight of my hands in the viewfinder. Remember, an SLR often does not have 100° viewfinder coverage, so if you put your hand right at the side, it will probably show up in the edge of the photograph. In this case, my hand was enough to prevent the sunlight from striking the front of the lens. The result is the elimination of the sunspots and a significant increase in contrast.