Sun Fun

I went to Magnuson Park this morning to experiment with the sunrise. I had some interesting results, although I was dealing with the scourge of lens flares. These were compounded by the fact that, in many cases (the first two out of the three in this post), I needed to use a graduated neutral density filter. Any time you add a filter, this increases your chance for lens flares. Thus, today's images would take some work in Lightroom to reduce or remove the flares, probably using the adjustment brush or possibly the clone/heal feature.

There's a technique, of course, in which you can combine multiple exposures, one of which involves blocking the sun with your hand, thus theoretically avoiding flares altogether. I have not yet aspired to this level of technical proficiency. It'd be hard to do anyway with subject matter like grass and flowers, since they tend to move ever so slightly in between exposures, even on a relatively still morning like this morning. So Lightroom it is - and, as of this writing, I've already done some experimenting with positive results. I'll won't get the flares to the point where it looks like they were never there, but hopefully I can alleviate to the point where they wouldn't be noticeable without specifically looking for them.

The first one looks out at Lake Washington through some grass.

Next is a nearby patch of white clover. There are also some issues with flares in this one, although they're fairly small and should also be manageable.

Finally, some hardhack, or Douglas's spiraea (Spiraea douglasii). I'm not quite sure about how I feel about this image as a whole - I wish the hardhack occupied more of the frame, and that there wasn't the coloration right around the sun. Still, I think it's nice.