Photo testing.

[Mike66Chryslers]

Does that damage the lens or camera or just messes up the photo?

I don't believe it damages the camera, but just in case, when I had the camera sitting on the tripod pointed at the sun and not actually taking pictures, I put the lens cap on it.

 

[Mike66Chryslers]

A trick I learned while shooting weddings way back when.
Set exposure for the sun set/rise (or any back lighting you want to capture and use the flash to light the foreground

That probably wouldn't work for car photography, at least not with the built-in flash. The car is too far away. Also, I don't think my DSLR can use the flash in full-manual mode. I think it switches on some automatic adjustments whenever the flash is in use.

The two pictures I posted above are each actually a composite of 2 pictures taken with different settings. One captures the sky but the car is dark, and the other captures the car but the sky is washed-out. Then I photoshop them together after-the-fact. It took me awhile to figure out a technique to do that with pictures where there isn't a clear delineation between the sky and the ground.

 

[Mike66Chryslers]

Here are the 2 pictures that I combined together to make the direct-sun picture I posted above. After I blended the sky from the dark picture into the rest of the bright picture, I added some vignette and a fake lens-flare effect.

 

[cbarge]

I took this pic and somebody (I cannot remember who,sorry) did the "filters" thing (thank you) I was facing the sun at about 7pm-ish. ..One of my favourite pics of my car..

 

[tallhair]

Looks like advertising

 

[live4theking]

Does that damage the lens or camera or just messes up the photo?

Just messes up the photo.