Dealing With Sun Flare

How do you deal with sun flare? While sun flare can lend a beautiful, warm look to your images, sometimes you don’t want the lifted shadows, lack of contrast or slightly orange tint.

To help combat sun flare, you can either use a lens hood or cup your hand around the lens on the side the sun is entering from (like Emily Fuselier did below, that’s her hand in the frame).

Notice below how her hand blocks the sun and reduces the flare, bringing her shadows back, upping her contrast and removing the orange tint?

A photo of a woman wearing a
yellow dress standing in a field, with the photographer's hand visible at the top of the frame

Now, after cropping out her hand, Emily is left with two beautiful images to choose from—one with sun flare and one without.

A photo of a woman wearing a
yellow dress standing in a field

This is one of the reasons why our Normal Scans are larger than other labs’ entry level scans—we want you to have freedom to crop and still be able to make a beautiful print!

Emily Fuselier / Fuji400H / Contax645 / Lake Charles, Louisana / Sarah Palermo / Retro West