12. Sun bursts

I am sure everybody remembers the times when any attempts to include the sun in the frame automatically resulted in a major failure.  No matter how hard we tried, the technology available at that time didn’t allow photographers to capture wider spectrum of light tones hence avoiding pointing the camera towards the direct sun was a “number 1 photography rule”. However, those times are gone for good. Several generations of high-end DSLRs and few last generations of mirror-less cameras are capable of wonders when it comes to capturing light and dark tones. This capability, known as dynamic range, is critical when incorporating the sun in our frame. The wider the dynamic range of the camera, the greater number of tones it captures at both ends of light spectrum. In other words, the wider dynamic range, the smoother the transition from blue to white tones is until the area turns completely white (clipping). The same rule can be applied on the other end - in the shadows (black). Naturally, we want to avoid both completely white as well as completely black areas.   

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