How Do You Get That Starburst (and I’m not talking about the candy)

 When ever most people take photographs, they try not to take a picture directly into the sun. If you want even lighting on your subject you have the sun at your back. If you want dramatic lighting on your subject (and the sun is lower in the sky) you have the sun at your side. 

If you do shoot into the sun usually you get what’s typically called “backlit” photos, with the subject being very dark almost always in shadow, a silhouette. That can be fine, it’s just a creative choice. However, sometimes you can make it even more interesting depending on the scene. 

Have you ever seen the a photograph with the sun coming through and you see a “starburst” effect? Yes, there is software that does it (and I’ve used one of them in the past from Topaz on wedding rings so that the flash has a starburst).  But you can also make this happen right in camera.  Sorry, I’ve not found a way to control an IPhone to do this (no real control of the aperture that I’ve been able to find) but it can be done with SLR cameras. 

  In Heidelberg Germany up on the hill is the the remnants of a Renaissance structure of the Heidelberg Castle. This is truly a beautiful “ruin” to see. I highly recommend the Viking Rhine River Cruise where we saw this beautiful place, but I digress. 

When I was there, the sun was high and to shoot this beautiful building I had to shoot directly into the sun. This made for a little bit of a challenge to get what I wanted.  I could move my perspective where the sun was sheltered by the building (and I did do that for some shots). But then I thought of a way to have some creative fun.

I moved where the sun was coming though one of the windows. I set my apperature as closed down as possible (f22) and shot with the slowest shutter speed possible to still get a proper exposure all along hand holding the shot (I did have to lighten it up somewhat in post processing). It gave me just the effect I wanted, that starburst effect of the sun. 

In this case the effect is pretty much “in your face” for this shot. And for my fellow advanced architectural photographers, this version was not adjusted for the lens distortion of pointing my camera up (I still have to make that fix). 

You can use the technique no matter what your shooting, as long as there is a definitive light point. You can even use it on streetlights in a night shot. This shot above was a quick grab shot in Hawaii on the beach. I still got the effect, though it’s a bit more subtle.  I only wish I had a tripod with me (and had the time as the family was hungry to eat dinner that evening) when we came across this beach in Kauai. A typical silhouette shot but I think it’s more interesting with the sun burst. 

What do you think?  Have you ever done anything like this? 

I hope you all have a wonderful week ahead.