Having the sun in your photos while shooting landscapes at sunrise or sunset contributes a lot to the impact of your photos. But how do you deal with unwanted light spots and spots?
While landscape photography can be done at any time of the day, it is without a doubt a more common practice that landscapes are photographed during the golden hour, especially the minutes near sunrise or sunset. the most diving. Golden hour is not just a time when the colors in the sky are more vibrant and the light becomes relatively softer. Due to the direction of light from the sun hitting the clouds in the sky and the ground, the light can more emphasize the separation of many layers in the image. This can apply to multiple layers of clouds in the sky that will be hit by light in different ways, and this can also apply to foreground elements that are lit from the side.
During this time, including the sun in the image is also an obvious choice, especially when your foreground position is in the same direction where the sun sets or rises. The sun can be seen in different forms during this time and it all depends on whether it is covered by clouds. On a fairly cloudy day, the sun can look like a weak ball of light and this is probably the easiest photo to take. However, on a clear day or with just enough cloud cover to have enough windows unobscured, you may see the sun more intensely, which is perfect for capturing the sun with a beam. image.
Factors considered to relieve the sun
To successfully incorporate sunlight into your landscape photo composition, you need to consider several factors. Knowing these factors will help you better anticipate challenges in both shooting and post-processing and ultimately address these issues to better execute the shot you have in mind.
Sunlight rays are seen on your photos when the sun shines a bright light directly on your camera. Two factors contribute to the flare of light, namely the aperture blades of the lens and other objects that can partially and minimally block sunlight. Examples of the latter are thin clouds, mountain peaks, buildings, and other foreground elements that you can place between the camera and the sun. The rule of thumb for apertures is that since you put more aperture blades in the way of light as you decrease your aperture (and increase the f-number), this results in more rays of light on your sunlight effect. . However, it’s important to know your lens’s sweet spot for sunbursts, which is essentially the aperture value that offers the longest burst times or is simply more appealing. 
For the second factor, prediction is key. Once you’ve decided on your composition for a particular shot, you can already predict what visual elements might interfere with your view of the sun as it sets or rises. This way you can plan a few minutes in advance so that the angle you take will get a partially obscured view of the sun and give you attractive beams of sunlight. This is the easier part of the process. The bigger challenge is managing other visual artifacts that arise from direct sunlight photography.
Flare lens
In general, flares are unavoidable when shooting with the sun in the frame. However, they are manageable, requiring only one simple condition, that the glass is completely clean. This concerns not only the glass layers of the lens, but also the individual filter layers you use when shooting landscapes. When all layers are free of moisture, dust, smudges, or oils from your hands and anything else that could impair clarity, lens flare can be as simple as a blip if you there is the sun in the middle of the frame. If the sun is further away from the center that will result in a few brighter spots due to isolated reflections between the different layers of glass but generally manageable when all layers are clean.
Another artifact that can arise that looks similar to lens flare is the reflection of lines (usually white) on the non-glass front of the lens. These marks typically show the focal length range and features of the lens and the size of the filter thread. Whenever these marks reflect light even to the smallest extent, the reflections bounce back to the layers of the filters we use, causing them to be reflected onto the glass and the sensor itself. The simplest way to manage them is to cover them up. You can do this by using matte black tape to cover the white patches, or if you want a more permanent solution, coating it can also work.
Dust and spots
Just as anything in the way of a sensor will cause light reflection between the layers of glass, direct sunlight hitting small dust particles will work in a similar way. Dust on your lens or filter is usually less visible unless cropped and magnified. However, direct sunlight increases their effect on images, making them more visible. This is even more apparent when the dust particles are close to the sun’s rays, which is why it’s so important to pay attention to that area.
Deal with light spots and dust
The simplest yet most tedious way to deal with both flare artifacts and dust spots on your images is obviously to remove them manually during post-processing. This can be done in Lightroom, Photoshop, or virtually any post-processing software available. There are many tools available that can remove these unwanted spots, such as using the Spot Healing tool, Clone Stamp, etc. All of them offer unique ways to remove a blip from an image using a cleaner way to sample part of the image to replace that area and blend that into that point. The most important thing to remember when doing this is to use the smallest brush size possible to cover the spot so you don’t edit any necessary details.
Another way is to use time blending to capture a version of the photo without direct sunlight. This means taking a different exposure before or after the sun is in the frame with the exact same camera angle and blending those into the affected parts of the photo. This also means that the exposure and color temperature of the low-glare exposure must be adjusted so that it blends well into the main image.
The last option is often called the “finger method,” which uses a finger or any other object (like a pen, stick, etc.) to shade the sun during a single exposure to get a version of the photo without flare and dust spots are emphasized, and similarly, blend clean areas into the main image. This way you have a clean version of the shot with the same color temperature, which is easier to blend into the main image with sunlight.
