first attempt at sun burst

This was my fisrt real attempt at a sun burst, I have seen them on here and have attempted them before without any luck.

Personally I am pretty chuffed with the result, I havent done too much work with the image in PS only adjusted the hue.

Are there any other adjustments that would make the image better?

all comments welcome.

gear used 350D 10-22mm

Not bad Stu,

You have controlled the Cyan fringe around the sun well. Considering you are quite deep. Although there is a bit too much Pompey blue in there for me, today!

My main critique would be on the composition. Particularly the arrangement of the three dominant compositional elements (sun, diver, sponge) which are in a line in the middle of the frame. Ideally you should try and find a camera angle that would arrange these to make better use of the whole frame.

Alex

Alex

Although there is a bit too much Pompey blue in there for me, today!

there is always too much pompey blue, come on the cardiff ! !

cheers for the advice, i was not too worried about composition to be honest. i was more concerned with getting the sun bleeding through how many of you pro's seem to do it with ease. my first attempts of this kind of shot when i was at sipadan last year were all being blown out and the result was a very white blue.

i played around with a few different settings last week in lembeh and this shot was achieved with shutter speed 80 and F18. i dont know if there is a set rule for this kind of shot or whether each camera and model produces a different image. i am in the process of having an apartment built out in marsa alam so i will be able to get in the water more often to practice. At the moment i am only getting 6 weeks diving in per year and find that although i need to experiment, i dont want to not get any shots at all, so i am kind of reluctant to try new things. the shot above was taken on a day trip to bangka last week which was a day i had set aside purposely for experimenting.

once again cheers for the advice Alex

You're welcome. To change the subject, what was the water temp in Lembeh? I'm off there during the next month?

My 5mm suit is in Sardinia - and I think that would have been ideal. I am wondering if I can get away with my 3mm with something underneath or I'll have to get another 5mm. I am adverse to accumulating too much kit - but then I am particularly adverse to getting cold!

Alex

28c on most dives. the weather was generally good in the morning and then the heavy rain would come in for around 3pm. i dived in a 3mm and was fine, i only got a little cold on the mandarin/night dives. we flew with singapore from heathrow and had concerns with weight allowance. i had spoken to them on numerous occasions and they were adamant that i would have to pay £50 approx per kilo over my 20 k allowance. we did not get chrged for any excess nor did we speak to anyone that had been charged.

the hairy frogfish have disappeared from lembeh. there is only one left which is a black one. the last time any of the guides at NAD had seen them were 3 months ago when they found a dead one at TK2. since then they have either all died or moved to the deeper waters. vis was the3 same as when we were last there ( crap )

if you get the chance to dive bangka, do it, unless you have been before of course. it is similar to bunaken but without the mad currents. the soft corals reminded us of komodo.

we stayed at NAD in one of their minahasa bungalows and had a great time. we stayed at KBR the first trip and NAD was on par with KBR only NAD was £700 cheaper.

we had a great guide, Rudi who was our guide at KBR a few years ago. so that was nice to see him again.

what did we see.

sea moths, various frogfish, various mantis shrimp. harlequin shrimps, harlequin crab, soft coral crab, orangutang crab, decorator crabs, colman shrimp, various nudi's, snake eels, ribbon eels, lots of different shrimps, squat lobsters, ornates, robusts, squid, cuttlefish, pygmys, pygmy pipefish, morays, mandarin, star gazer, various devil scorpionfish, rhinopius, flounders, soles, various filefish and more.

the highlight of the trip for me was to see a flamboyant cuttlefish hatch from its egg. the egg was the size of a large pea and the cuttlefish was transparant inside. as soon as it was in contact with the sea water it changed into the amazing colours of the flamboyant cuttlefish. heres a shot of it inside of half a coconut shell with it alongside the other eggs.

Hi and Wow !!!

'flamboyant cuttlefish hatch from its egg' is surely something I never seen before even though I took picture of egg delivery. Thanks for sharing the pictures.

It is sad to hear famous Lembeh hairly flogfish is not there this year but, hope to see it comeback there. Meantime, I saw hairly flog fishes in El dolado point in Dumageti last week first time ever in Philippines.

Sam

I know you wanted comments on the sunburst, but I have to say WOW on catching the hatching!

wow! stew, amazing capture of hatching, that really must have been something to see. well done.

how long did you wait around until it hatched? was it just total luck you happened to see it happen?

Scott

wow! stew, amazing capture of hatching, that really must have been something to see. well done.

 

how long did you wait around until it hatched? was it just total luck you happened to see it happen?

 

Scott

total fluke. the guide knew that they were inside of the coconut shell and i could see them moving around inside quite aggresively, i didnt realise that they were flamboyant cuttlefish, although i could make out that they were cuttlefish. after trying to get my wifes attention so she could come and video them, the little guy looked as if he was eating his way out of the egg. within a split second he had burst the egg and turned into the most amazing colours right in front of my eyes. unfortunately my computer was getting near its deco limits and i had only time for 5 shots. unfortunately my wife thought that i was calling her to show her a crab so she decided not to come over. obviously when we were back on the boat she was very gutted that she missed an amazing opportunity.

after the dive i spoke to the guide who informed me that he had been protecting this coconut shell for a few weeks as he had seen the parent cuttlefish depositing the eggs under it and he had also seen her/him return to check the eggs out a few times. i was lucky enough to see killer whales hunting in cocos at christmas and this is alongside that for best underwater moments.