Sunburst

I tried to work on Sunball/Sunburst pictures in Bonaire last week. I liked this one at first, but it just doesn't 'pop' like some I've seen on Wetpixel. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

F14, 1/250, ISO 100, 10-22 @ 22mm

Hi David, I think it is a bit overexposed. If you increase shutter speed you will get a better result (I think). This is ambient light only, correct? I would increase the shutter speed to 1/500 or higher to get only the silhouettes of the fish and maybe use f11 or less (I don't know about the 10-22, but many wide angle lenses are sharper between f5.6 and f11).

Luiz

I think the problem is image softness. F14 and 250th should be good enough to freeze the sunrays and the fish. I havn't seen any other images with your lens/dome combo so I don't know if you have a mismatch problem or the image is just OOF.

Also could be a case of water clarity. Different water clarity together with sun angle provide different shooting situations that can lead to awesome shots. Other situations are simply harder to shoot due to clarity, depth and sun angle. I don't believe that every opportunity to shoot sunballs will result in images like those that have been posted on Wetpixel becuase it is not only skill, it is situational.

Joe

Thanks for the input.

Larry...looking at the image and thinking about the focus issue..I think you're right. I got focus lock, but without a prime taget to focus on, I don't know what was locked. Where's that big tarpon when you need him. It is definitely soft. I used the recommended Ike port for the 10-22 and had other pics with this setup that were much sharper.

Agree with Joe's suggestion on water conditions. The best sun ray shots are when you can actually see them clearly in the water. Those will really pop in the shot.

Rand

I agree with Joe and Rand. Conditions are very important. And I think in the conditions you had you have a decent result.

You might want to look at this discussion too:

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7819

Alex

Joe is Right on conditions play a big part. The other thing is my most common mistake and certainly was in my first couple years of uw photography is camera shake/movement. We are under"freakin"water for god's sake and it makes it tough. There is a pic in Howard halls book of dolphins with some sunrays and he had a shutter speed of 1/60 so like Joe said the angle of the sun makes a difference. Here are two of my shots the diver was a favorite for a long time it was taken at 1/500 in manual and the fisherman was program mode. As I write this I want to say you need a hot (bright) sun, fairly calm surface or depending on sun height a big subject to focus on helping to dispurse the rays. So bottom line the suject helps the conditions.