We had 2.2 minutes of sunshine and boy, was I ready. I had already googled "how to photograph a sun flare," and came away with a few directions.
- Must have sunlight.
- Focus on something between the camera and the sun.
- Use a big F stop, which means a tiny aperture, or as I like to call it, "light hole."
- Use a low-ish ISO.
- Use a slow-ish shutter speed.
- Set the white balance to cloudy. Or sunny. Depending on the weather.
- Take the setting off green square and go to that new territory called "M."
- Try, try again. Don't let anybody tell you that you can't take pictures of the sun. You know who you are.
So after dozens of click-delete-reset-repeat, I got this:
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1/80s, F22, ISO400 |
HA! It can be done! This is on my front porch. That, my friends, is the sun.
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Everything was the same, except I lowered the exposure time to 1/60 of a second. No multi-colored bubbles.
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I don't own any version of Photoshop and I haven't gone to Picasa yet. I use Creative Memories Memory Manager, because I used to (and would still like to be) big into scrapbooking. I bought their program to sort and save my pictures, and I use their editing tools too. But not today. Everything you see today is SOOC. That means Straight Out of the Camera. PW taught me that.
Blarg. Sometimes Blogger lets me put captions, and sometimes it doesn't. Does anyone else have this problem?
Anyway, Sun Flare #3 has all the same settings as above, just a different arch on my front porch.
Same as before. 1/60s F22 ISO400. Stupid blogger. I guess I only get two captions along with my two minutes of sun.
This post was brought to you toddler-free by two episodes of Shaun the Sheep.
Oh my gosh. Prepared and gorgeous! That bottom one is truly spectacular.
ReplyDeleteLast pic is the best, beautiful arch, and the sun is doing a little star action. Good job!
ReplyDeleteI love that you, who claim to be a total camera novice, just taught me more about how to take sun flare pictures than any one else I've ever read.
ReplyDeleteRemind me never to play pool with you, ya shark.
And the pictures are gorgeous. I love, love, love sun flare.
Very pretty!
ReplyDeleteWhy do you have such a cool brick window on your porch?
ReplyDeleteBonus! I have four of them. A tuckpointers dream. Did glimpse my Christmas lights are still there?
DeleteI love Shaun the Sheep. If he led a workout at a gym in my neighborhood, I would be there. In that opening sequence, those sheep look like they're actually having fun working out with him! Love him.
ReplyDeleteI love the angles on the last one. The sun flares are perfect! And please do run through a tutorial each week?? I had no idea what I was doing but I don't understand photography blogs and I half understood what you were saying!!
ReplyDeleteAre they calling them "tutorials" now? I think of it as a recipe, preheat your camera to M. With a 1/80 teaspoon of exposure, add 22 F stops. I'll try. But I'm really just figuring it out as I go.
DeleteSeconding Cari! I read about a hundred "how to" articles before attempting my sun flare shots and none of them were as clear and helpful as your bulleted list! As soon as the rain clears up I'm going to try again with your instructions. Oh, and great shots, too!
ReplyDeleteLove the star shape in the last picture!
ReplyDeleteGreat pictures! I would love to get better at photography. I guess it might help if I bought a better camera. :-) Anyway, nice job capturing the sunflares!
ReplyDelete