swam off, and I boarded the boat to
exclamations of jealousy and demands
to see my images. As I scrolled through
the pictures, however, my heart sank.
Instead of the shot I had envisioned — a
defensive sea lion rimmed by strikingly
defined sunrays — the image I had taken
looked like a white ball of death rimmed
by an ugly aqua halo. Was there even a
sea lion in the middle of that blazing orb?
Instantly I knew what I had done
wrong: My camera’s exposure settings,
so perfect for the earlier images I’d taken
with the sun at my back, hadn’t been
adjusted to shoot into the sun. How
humiliating. I turned to the other divers
and shook my head sheepishly as their sympathetic
laughs echoed around me. It turned out I was in good
company; for the entire journey back to the harbor, the
other shooters on board regaled me with similar tales of
missed opportunities.
THE SUNNY SIDE OF DIGITAL IMAGING
Open any book or magazine on diving, and the chances
are excellent that you’ll find references to and photos of
the sun. Rays filtering through the water, an incredible
creature silhouetted by a sunburst, light piercing the
entrance to a cavern: All are worthy of enthusiasm, and
all have frustrated camera-toting divers. Finding and
capturing those beautiful sunrays requires patience,
effort and luck. Even if your camera settings are
appropriate, clipped highlights, banding or general loss
of detail could easily mar your photographs.
Film was better able to record contrast and subtle
color detail than most digital sensors, so a properly
exposed sunburst was more likely to yield a pleasing
result. However, most photographers have long since
transitioned to digital imaging, and we have learned
to adjust from old to new media. Digital sensors are
constantly improving, and digital cameras offer
several tools to help photographers take full
advantage of each opportunity.
Shooting images in RAW format ensures that we
retain the maximum dynamic range for each image
file. Reviewing images and histograms throughout
each dive provides constant opportunities to adjust
exposure settings, and bracketing (shooting several
slightly different exposures of the same subject)
provides a digital safety net to lessen the chances of
exposure mishaps.
SUNRAYS AND SUNBURSTS
If you have ever spent an extended safety stop mesmerized
by the effects of late-afternoon sun as it strikes shallow
water, you are familiar with shallow sunrays — also
commonly called “God’s rays” or dappled light. Water
is far denser than air, so while some of the sun’s light
energy is reflected at the water-air interface, the rays
that penetrate the water are refracted and scattered.
Depending on the time of day and surface conditions,
we can actually see defined, golden beams of light in the
water column.
Although the optical explanation seems simple, this
beautiful light effect requires a very particular set of
circumstances that aren’t encountered on every dive. First,
the deeper you go, the more light energy is diffused, so
the “beam” effect mainly occurs in shallow water. Second,
if there is a chop on the water’s surface, the sunlight will
be more scattered, which may prevent the formation of
distinct beams. Third, particulate in the water column, a
nuisance in many other imaging situations, actually help
define the sunrays. Finally, timing plays an enormous
role in capturing this effect. This phenomenon is
most likely when the sun is low in the sky; therefore
some photographers may plan early-morning or late-
afternoon dives to attempt to capture the effect.
Many of the principles for viewing and photographing
sunbursts with defined rays are the same as for shallow
sunrays. The key factors include shallow water containing
some particulate matter, calm surfaces and a low-hanging
sun. Deeper water or different times of day can present a
sunball with different visual characteristics but that’s no
less compelling of a compositional element.
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The mid-day sunrays here appear to converge at a point below the
blue whale’s head, an optical illusion that enhances the subject.
