Backlit Sun Through Mist

As I have mentioned before, I love to backlight subjects. Backlighting is especially great when there is some atmosphere in the air, like smoke, fog or mist. One example is this image from Yellowstone National Park of the morning sun through the mists of nearby geysers.

It can be tricky to get the exposure in balance when the camera is looking straight into the sun, as here. The contrast between the bright sun and the shadows is usually too much, so you can only get one or the other properly exposed.

In this situation, the mist softened up the light from the sun a bit, but would still blow out the sky. I needed something else to tone down the sun a bit more, so I placed a tree in line between the sun and my lens to diffract the sun a bit and bring the whole exposure into range.