What is image 'blooming' and how can it be reduced?

When shooting a bright light source such as direct sunlight, the source of the light may appear as a bright halo with column or line defects around the highlight. This phenomenon may appear on a digital camera LCD or on the image itself and is known as blooming, smearing or streaking. It is not a camera defect.

This phenomenon appears when the subject illumination is so strong that the sensor pixels become saturated, this saturation usually appears as a white area on the image which is proportional to the intensity of the illumination source. Data is moved from the light sensitive pixels on the image sensor into shift registers and then on for processing. In areas where there are excessive amounts of light (photons) received on the pixel they will spill into neighbouring pixels and into adjacent registers which shift this light out causing the lines visible on the image itself.

This effect is noticeable on the LCD monitor of COOLPIX cameras and 'Live View' functions of DSLR which have a live image preview. This can be controlled by the user before taking the shot, to reduce this effect use as small an aperture as possible or use an ND (Neutral Density) filter to reduce the amount of light. When possible move the bright subject/object out of frame.
Some smearing may appear in movies taken with COOLPIX cameras in bright conditions.