Sun Ray and Crinkled Light

[the_cat_keeper]

How do I get sun ray to show up in my underwater photos? I tried pointing the camera upwards for those shots but when I did that, all I get was over-exposed photos And for crinkled light, I tried shooting that at shallow depths to capture the moving light patches but didn't work. Do I have to adjust (slow down? increase?) the shutter speed? Or use some special settings?

Thanks!

 

[azcaddman]

Shutter speed needs to be 1/125, or faster

 

[havnmonkey]

Fast shutter, higher aperature usually works the best. I also noticed I got better results at a 60-80 foot depth (tropical Caribbean water).

 

[orangeBloke]

If you're using digital take more than one shot as what appears on the LCD may not look so good when you enlarge it.

Faster shutter speed and greater f number will help but you want to make sure that you don't blow out or under expose the rest of the image too much. But play around, what works in one location or depth may not work in another.

It helps, if possible, to also take the light reading from somewhere between the darkest and brightest part of the shot so that the camera tries to balance things a bit better

 

[AndyT]

When attempting these type of shots I usually start off at around F 6.3 @ 1/800 - it all depends on depth and viz. It also helps to either position a subject between you the sun and the lens or have the center of the sun just out of the frame.

 

[RayJayJr]

NEVER listen to anything your LCD has to say - it lies like a rug.


Turn on the Histogram feature of your LCD and use that to judge if you've taken a correct exposure.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/histograms1.htm to learn about histograms.

 

[the_cat_keeper]

NEVER listen to anything your LCD has to say - it lies like a rug.


Turn on the Histogram feature of your LCD and use that to judge if you've taken a correct exposure.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/histograms1.htm to learn about histograms.

You're right, the image on the LCD is not necessarily "wysiwyg"; I noticed so many times that a photo on my LCD looks okay but turned out to be too dark after downloading onto my PC!

Thanks for the link - I'd never figured out :blush: the intent of the histogram! The website is interesting... but I'm going to need some time to digest that stuff.

Thanks again, and merry christmas.