6 replies to this topic

[luminary]

Basically, how is it done? Just saw some awesome pictures over on scubadiving.com with the sun rays shinning through some kelp and it got me thinking...I've never been able to get the rays to show like that and I've tried lots of different things to do it...

[james]

You absolutely MUST have a shutter speed over 1/90th or even 1/125th to get sun rays.

You won't get good sun rays on a cloudy day (duh) and a little bit of surface chop will help (creates "lensing" of light through curved seasurface).

HTH
James Wiseman

[luminary]

Cool...I'm usually shooting at a bit slower than 1/125...I'm diving this weekend so I'll give it a go!

Thanx.

[davephdv]

For film you must shoot ar 1/125th or 1/250th. With digital you need to keep the sun out of the photo due to the blown highlights factor.

[james]

Here's a shot taken w/ the S2 at 1/125 @f8:



Not the best shot, but you get the idea.

Here's what happens w/ the 14mm lens is you direct sunlight hit the front element from the wrong angle:



HTH
James

[scorpio_fish]

Set your camera at 1/125 or 1/250. Shoot. If too much sun, stop down as much as possible. The smaller the aperture (i.e. higher number setting) will reduce the size of the sun. It can also create a starburst effect when the aperture is smaller than the sun itself.

Non-SLR digitals (prosumer or consumer as they call it) have a harder time of it due to limited dynamic range of the sensor because of the size of the actual photosite. This limits the total range of light to dark it can show detail in within the frame. If you have any dark areas in your frame, you need to accept that this will have no detail. Treat them as if they were going to be silhouettes.

[wetpixel]

When I was a underwater photo newbie, I pointed my Coolpix 950 at the sun in full-auto mode, and got some pretty good results.

Here's one (taken in Bora Bora, last June):