Star Burst Photography – Creative use of back lighting

Had a great day this Saturday at the Brighton Zombie Walk – a Beach of the Dead event. When I take photographs at events I try and take images that are unique, many of the photos you see look like record shots to me. It’s good as a photographer to try and stand out form the crowd. This year I decided to try some creative back lit images, using star-bursts and lens flare. Some of them worked and some of them didn’t! I’ve looked at the results and I’ll share what I have learned.

Incidentally we are running a street photography competition to win OnOne Perfect Sudio6, something that I use on a regular basis. Definitely worth entering.

Many purists totally condemn “burned out highlights”. I’ve lost count of the times that great images at my Camera Club have been marked down for “burn out”, however, I’m increasingly going for the burn! Sod the traditionalists, when you take images for pleasure I’d encourage breaking the rules knowingly and creatively as much as you like. Just have fun.

Brighton Zombie Walk 2011 - click to buy this image

Firstly, my lens flare images were the least successful, so much so that I’m not going to publish any! I do intend to perfect the technique and I’ll publish a post on this when I’ve got it! The problem is to get great lens flare you need a really wide aperture (small numbers f2.8 for example though f4 would be more useful in this instance). When you are out and about shooting really fast, focusing can be difficult and I have a lot of “so nearly there” images I almost want to cry! The eyes must be in focus the wider the aperture the harder this is. If you have a model and some time it’s much easier to get this right, but for events where everything and everybody is moving it’s much harder.

Brighton Zombie Walk 2011 - click image to buy

For flare position the sun behind your subject, for star bursts position your subject to the side of the sun – my best images are the ones where the sun is just clipped by my subject.

My star burst images are much better. Now this is important:

• The smaller the aperture (f22 for example), the more star burst you will get
• The bigger the aperture (f2.8 for example) the less star burst and more soft flare you will get. As mentioned before though f4 is a safer bet for portraits as you will be more likely to get those eyes sharp.

So to create the biggest star-burst effect you need to  increase your aperture to the highest number possible eg. f22

The main problem will be that you’re shooting into the the sun which is much brighter than your subject. That’s why you’ll need another light source, I use my Canon Speedlight to light my subject so they’re not too underexposed. In a controlled situation you could use off camera flash so that the light is not so direct, and you could use more than one flash unit as fighting the sun can be quite tricky especially when the sun is at its highest.

You will need to underexpose the image to get the most detail from the sky.

Set your shutter speed as high as it can go while still syncing with your external flashes (around 1/200 or 1/250).

It’s a good idea to practise on inanimate objects, then you can experiment first with aperture settings, bracketed exposures, underexposure, flash settings, off camera flash and sun position. Try autumn leaves, buildings anything really, use your imagination. I find that having a little experimental project in mind when I go out shooting is the perfect way to learn new techniques, it’s easier later on to call upon what you learn when you need to react quickly to a situation to get that “decisive moment” in the bag.

This image was taken without flash at f22, it was the little star bursts I was interested in, if you look closely they appear everywhere!

Jokulsarlon Lagoon Iceland - click the image to buy

You can see more of my photography on my website Brighton Photographer

Circle Heather Buckley on Google+

Become a Fan of Heather Buckley Photography Facebook Page

For those who are interested in editing your photos to make the most of them consider booking one of our Photoshop Courses or Lightroom courses. You may also be interested in reading:

Photographing People – 10 steps towards stunning portraits

Aperture Priority or AV Mode – made simple

Related posts:

1. Exposure Bracketing in Photoshop – Cheat using RAW
2. Adobe Lightroom – Another great time saving Top Tip
3. Using Photoshop Lighting Effects

Similar resources you may like

Related posts:

1. Exposure Bracketing in Photoshop – Cheat using RAW
2. Adobe Lightroom – Another great time saving Top Tip
3. Using Photoshop Lighting Effects

Tags

Back lighting, Beach of the Dead, brighton, Brighton zombie walk, Brighton Zombie Walk 2011, photography, starburst, starburst photography, sun star burst, Zombie

Share This Resource

• Digg
• Twitter
• Stumbleupon
• Delicious
• Facebook
• Myspace
• Google
• Technorati
• Newsvine