Here are two more clickable photos from Sunday's photography fun. I posted a video of the making of these photos HERE, but I wanted to use these photos to talk a bit more about capturing "sunbursts" (also called sun flares or starbursts). Sunbursts are when you capture the sun in your photos, along with the pointy "rays" coming off of the sun.
One of the key settings for capturing good sunbursts is having a small aperture, as close to f22 as you can get. Both photos below were shot at f22. The smaller the aperture, the better the burst you can get. You can still get sunbursts at wider apertures, they just tend to be smaller rays coming off of the sun.
Another thing that helps get better sunbursts is having the sun partially behind or partially covered by an object. In the first photo below, the sun is partially behind the mountain which helped create a pretty nice sunburst. In the second photo, the sun is still higher in the sky and although it still created a sunburst, it is not quite as nice as the first shot. Clouds in front of the sun can also decrease the effect of sunbursts, as it did in the second shot.
So, what's with that crazy orange color to the sun and reflection of the sunlight on Lake Tahoe? Smoke... There was smoke in the air from a wildfire and that can make sunsets and sunrises incredibly intense with oranges and yellows that seem unreal. Mix that orange with the crazy blues, aquas, and greens of Lake Tahoe, and you can end up with a pretty cool looking photo.
click images to view large
#1
#2
Both of these photos were shot on a Canon 5DS R with a 24-105mm lens. The first one had a focal length of 24mm, the second one was 40mm. They both had an aperture of f22, in order to get that sunburst. The ISO was 50 for both. The shutter speed was 6 seconds for the first one, 2 seconds for the second. Both were shot with a polarizing filter and two graduated neutral density filters. The polarizer helped cut through the glare on the surface of Lake Tahoe, in order to bring out more green and aqua colors from the lake. The polarizer probably wasn't necessary for the seconds shot. The graduated neutral density filters helped darken the sky and balance out the exposure with the foreground.
Question - Which of these two shots is your favorite?
Thank you for looking and reading!
Scott Thompson
Scott Shots Photography
Click to view my Dynamic Steemians Discord channel. Feel free to ask me photo related questions there:
More posts from this photoshoot:
- Video - Last Night's Lake Tahoe Photography Fun! (and a bit of "how-to")
- Amazing Lake Tahoe Sunset, Shot This Sunday (and a bit of "how-to")
As always, large limited edition prints, printed by me personally, are available for purchase with USD or STEEM.
😎
Haha! Thank you for the resteem!!!
it is so beautiful look like you have photoshop it>>
Thank you @sojournx! I did forget to mention the editing steps... Yes, all of my images are shot in RAW format and I work on them in Photoshop's Camera RAW feature where shadows are lightened, highlights are darkened, and the color is balanced. The saturation and vibrancy are increased a touch but really not that much. The smoke helped create that crazy orange color and the polarizing filter on the lens helps bring out the crazy lake colors. You actually can see those lake colors with the naked eye, but yeah, the polarizer helps bring it out more. Cheers!
This looks like a movie scenery...i am so amazed by your work...thank you so much for sharing :)
Thank you @blog-fictions! Tahoe is pretty amazing. Glad you like my work! Cheers!
I always love your work..keep sharing :)
And you can call me Alice...if you ever read my blog...haha...
Great pictures and good to know about the small aperture for the sunbursts. My favorite is the first one!
Thank you! Glad that was helpful. And thank you for letting me know your fav, I think I like that one best too but the vertical sure would make a nice magazine cover...
Great shots and thank you for all the info about it!
I have a thing about vertical landscapes so I'll say that the second one is my favorite although I love the first one too!
Oh nice! Glad you liked that one. And glad you liked the info. Cheers!
so much beautiful, its like a photo in a postcard
Cool, thank you! Glad you liked it.
I c now 🤔 🙃
Posted using Partiko iOS
Haha! I hope it was helpful and made sense. And I hope you're having a great vacation!
World of Photography
>Visit the website<
You have earned 6.50 XP for sharing your photo!
Daily photos: 1/2
Daily comments: 0/5
Multiplier: 1.30
Block time: 2018-07-26T17:07:24
Total XP: 792.63/800.00
Total Photos: 101
Total comments: 27
Total contest wins: 4
Follow:
Join the Discord channel: click!
Play and win SBD:
Daily Steem Statistics:
Learn how to program Steem-Python applications:
Developed and sponsored by: @photocontests@fairlotto@dailysteemreport@steempytutorials @juliank
Thank you for your contribution to the "photocircle" tag
Cheers,
Check out this post for information on all the Photocircle tags
Learn about this photo curation project by clicking >here
To stop receiving comments then reply
!STOP!@photocircle TeamCongratulations, Your Post Has Been Added To The Steemit Worldmap!
Author link: http://steemitworldmap.com?author=scottshotsPost link: http://steemitworldmap.com?post=smokey-sunset-sunbursts-at-lake-tahoe-2-photos-and-a-bit-of-how-to
Want to have your post on the map too?