Reply To: First (real) attempts at sun balls (2nd photo)

[Nicolas]

Hi @stiebs ,

I like how your composition has depth, with 3 distinct layers: foreground corals, middle-ground fish+reef, background surface/sun.

Yes the fish could have been better lined up, but I personally don’t mind, it’s nature and they aren’t the main subject (I would really mind if they were the main subject over a water background).

There are ways to make your foreground pop more, next time you have a similar opportunity, let me propose a few ideas.

First things first: the sunball takes too much attention away because it’s large and burnt. I know it’s tempting to add it in, but you need to tame that sunball, and increase the strobe-to-sunlight ratio, so that your foreground is more vibrant.

Taming the sunball:

• Quick win: max out your shutter speed (1/250th on your camera), to reduce the ambient light contribution, without impacting your strobes.
• That’s likely not enough, so next reduce ISO, and if this isn’t enough, reduce Aperture too. Lower ISO means higher chances to recover highlights in post.
• Then, as your strobes contribution has just been cut down, increase the strobe power. If you’re running out, get closer to the subject.
• If the sunball is still very blown out (check histogram), then consider cutting the sun out of the frame, leaving just the sunrays.

Composition-wise, I would have prefer the yellow coral on the left to be whole, or left out of the frame entirely (it attracts attention).

I am not too bothered by the lighting’s harshness, but you can always reduce shadows by bringing the strobes closer to the camera, assuming the viz is good enough.