Starbursts

[MakersTeleMark]

A lot of times we are forced to shoot directly into the sun. How best to deal with it? I've seen sun shots that had starbursts, others just washed out the rest of the frame. Any tips or post shoot fixes?

BTW, thanks TGR for the forum. I look forward to it growing, and showing its influence on the other forums.

[summit]

Use a lens hood. This will help greatly if the sun is not IN the frame.

Keep your lens clean.

Use quality lenses (high end zooms have moving light baffles and rear element baffles)

Use lenses with fewer elements (primes).

Stop down.

[LeeLau]

http://truth.smugmug.com/photos/newe...geID=135267217 - good starburst.

hope to learn how to deal with that on continuous basis so all shots can look like this

http://www.leelau.net/2006/needlepea...rrangeview.jpg

that above was 1/2500 f8.0 ISO 200 handheld with EFS 10/22 on a Rebel XT

[pechelman]

Use a lens hood. This will help greatly if the sun is not IN the frame.

Keep your lens clean.

Use quality lenses (high end zooms have moving light baffles and rear element baffles)

Use lenses with fewer elements (primes).

Stop down.

about all you can do
and sometimes, theres just nothing you can do about it, espc on super wides

[MeatPuppet]

I normally have a circular polarizer on the lens when in bright sunlight and I always use a lens hood. I've never noticed a problem with lens flair and the few times it has showed up in a shoot, I haven't minded. Sometimes it is desirable and adds something to the pic.

So, does a CP help reduce lens flair, or is it a non issue?

[pechelman]

any additional element infront of your lens has the potential to worsen lens flare issues as there is another reflective non-coated surface.

CP help in reducing or controlling the amount of glare on other objects.

also with regard to the original question, i think i misread it.
starbursts, or flares that have points that resemble a star, are formed when you have that flare focused by the smaller aperatures. if you count the number of points on the starburst, you will see it directly relates to how many "leaves" there are on the iris of the aperature. (or look how many corners there are on the iris). In other words, shoot wide open if you want to minimize the star patterned flares, but stop down if you want to minimize flare.

[MeatPuppet]

any additional element infront of your lens has the potential to worsen lens flare issues as there is another reflective non-coated surface.

Cool. Thanks.

[Tippster]

In other words - if you have a UV Filter screwed on your lens (cheap protection) take it off to minimize flare. Don't forget to put it back when you're done, however.

[summit]

Yes to the additional elements increase flare...

Better yet get a good dual side multicoated Hoya filter... (Hoya SHMC or HMC if you don't want to plop the $) this will minimize internal reflections cause by the filter

[mtbakerskier]

This is one area where you can see a huge difference in the image between images shot with cheap low-end aftermarket glass, and high-end original mfg glass.

Also to get a good starburst effect, you need to stop the aperture down. F8 usually does the trick quite well.

Also this effect is best done with ultrawide glass. I.E. a 15mm fish.

[MakersTeleMark]

Thanks much.

Who's got the next technique question?

[snowjunkie]

Digging up this old thread. Love seeing photogs who utilize the starburst affect, and wanted to get better at it. I understand the need to use a small aperture, but are certain lenses better for achieving really awesome starbursts? I get some decent ones with my Canon 10-22mm, but non like the 11 or like 15 pointed ones I see in the mags sometimes.
Any advice would be rad.

[Fuzz]

Digging up this old thread. Love seeing photogs who utilize the starburst affect, and wanted to get better at it. I understand the need to use a small aperture, but are certain lenses better for achieving really awesome starbursts? I get some decent ones with my Canon 10-22mm, but non like the 11 or like 15 pointed ones I see in the mags sometimes.
Any advice would be rad.

Number of starburst spikes depends on number of blades in the lens.

For instance, this was shot with the Canon 70-200/2.8L:

Dubrovnik by FuzzSummit, on Flickr

And this with the Canon 16-35L:

Sunset over Portovenere by FuzzSummit, on Flickr

[systemoverblow'd]

Yup!

Canon 70-200 f/4 non-IS @ f/18


Canon 35L @ f/8


17-55 @ f/16


Canon 24-105 @ f/6.3


Tokina 11-16 @ f/16


Canon 35 f/2 @ f/6.3 extremely over exposed


Rokinon 85 f/1.4 @ unknown. Manual lens doesn't send info to the camera and it was a long time ago

[mag1882]

awesome shots mover, that's some collection.

I'm a big fan of sunstars, with snow it seems you can pretty much shoot straight into the sun, guess the snow reflects the light back onto the skier. Gotta get out of the habit of shooting at f/16 though.

Tokina 11-16 @ 11mm f/16 iso 100 1/500


Also I'm always wondering why people shoot at 1/2500 and have iso 200, when they could easily shoot at 1/1250, even 1/500th and get away with it? I know it's hardly going to increase the noise much at such low iso's, but still.

[supermodel159]

Sorry, such a shitty news day...I had to do it.

[powdork]

yeah the lens matters. this was with my old kit lens, that also had some moisture inside, further diffusing the light (f13)


these are with the tokina 12-24 at f22. this lens is subject to flaring quite a bit.

[snowjunkie]

Number of starburst spikes depends on number of blades in the lens.

Thanks for sharing. So is there a way to calculate how many spikes on the starburst a lens will create if you know how many blades are in the lens? It looks like there are 7 spikes on your 70-200, and 13 spikes on your 16-35, how many blades do those lenses have?

[geomorph]

I might be wrong about this, but I think that for an even number of blades, you get the same number of points. For an odd number of blades you get 2X the number of blades.