Shooting through glass with the sun at a low angle in the sky

Positivity on 2022-07-02

Kulinda the cheetah, prowling in the early sunshine. She helps me demonstrate one of the problems with shooting into morning sunshine through glass. No, she wasn’t being showered in rays of light by Hollywood SFX – that’s flare compounded by shooting through thick glass.

You can see where the sun was, and how low it was, by looking at her shadow.

This isn’t a great photo, but I thought it was a good example of the problems we can face when the sun is low in the sky and we’re forced to shoot through glass into it. At the same time, I was quite happy with how sharp the image came out, and I rather like rim lighting.

This image was shot at ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/1000 on the Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 GM II at 72mm.

Cheetah intensity

Positivity on 2021-10-28

Kulinda the cheetah is prowling. Not moving quickly, but intent on examining what the keepers have done to her space (she has been out for just a few minutes). She has come quite close to the window. This is a completely uncropped frame (and you know how much I love to crop!) – no room to crop, but I’m willing to put up with that on this one.

This image was shot with the Sony 135mm GM lens on a Sony A1, at f/1.8 1/3200 ISO 100. You could argue that I should perhaps have shot this at maybe f/8 to get a greater depth of field, but I like that only her head is fully in focus, courtesy of animal eye AF in the A1.

I can’t resist. Here’s another image from shortly before, as she stalked past the window. This image was shot with the same settings, and it, too, is uncropped. The early morning sun is low in the sky, but it’s already bright and clear (look at how strong her shadow is); there were no clouds this morning.

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