is there a way to prevent the sun from being burned out? I went out to shoot some dawn/sunrise pictures. While the sky turned out to be beautiful, the sun presented itself a big white circle in the photo. If I stopped down or shorten the exposure time farther, the sky and the ground features would be way too dark. So my question is, is there a way to get a yellow-ish, orange-ish sun (without HDR hopefully...)? Thanks.
HDR is about the only way. The sun is so bright relative to the sky or ground that it exceeds the dynamic range of any sensor. Only when the sun is really low in the sky (just above the horizon) and there's dust in the air (giving a really red sunset/sunrise) is it dim enough not to burn out.
You can't really use a graduated ND filter because that would darken the sky as well as the sun.
So your only option is combining two (or more) exposures, one made with the correct exposure for the sky/ground and one for the sun
thanks Bob. I am not a fan of HDR but I kind of tried it. Since the sun is so bright it lights up the sky around it, the sky around it in the normal exposure is brighter than the sphere itself in the darkened exposure, and the final HDR photo has artifacts (a yellow sphere with an ivory ring around it that graduates to yellow and then orange) that requires pixel manipulation to remove and I am against the idea of manipulating pixels. I guess I will have to either try different bracket setting the next time, or simply live with a pure white pie in the middle of the sky. =-)
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