Question For Photographers...

you shoot into the light and stop down the lens - f8 f16 etc, will give you a star burst look. depending on how many petals the iris has, will show how many pin points. otherwise just use the many photoshop brushes.

personally i don't like the flare in there, its usually distracting.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

You can buy star filters. They come with different number of 'beams" like four or eight.

Thanks Mike....I've tried f22 but haven't tried f16.

Thanks Edward. I have thought about a star filter....but would rather not use them.

Like Mike said shoot at around f16... It works like that for night photos too, not just the sun... It turns streetlights and such into starbursts. Different lenses will yield different results. Some lenses will produce really unattractive starbursts. TBH though, most of the time, I'm not really a fan of that effect on the sun. I love it on streetlights though.

Thanks Toby...I'll try the f16.

f/22 is not good for landscapes anyway - you start losing sharpness to light diffraction.

Alexey

If you're shooting directly into a sunset in order to get the star effect, you're going to lose so much to flare that you'll never see the loss due to diffraction.

I've tried f22 and it works...but I don't achieve the long rays that I've seen others getting.

I get them between F11 and F16. The smaller the AP, the more quality you can loose. Like Toby said, it can depend on your lens and your camera. I prefer natural starbursts over the man-made ones, however there are times when the man-made does look better and cleaner. For the sun, I prefer sunflares over bursts. More natural looking. I like the bursts on Street lights and sometimes stars in night scenes.

Thanks Jennifer. What type of camera and lens do you use? I use a Canon T3i and Canon lenses.

David, good point! I guess I meant more as a general rule.

I'm a Sony shooter. I use Sony & Carl Ziess lenses.