How I got this shot (by Cheshire Photographer Jane Burkinshaw)

Click on image to enlarge

I got some lovely comments about this pic that I took and posted on Facebook yesterday. Just thought I'd share with you that I took it with a  compact camera on an automatic setting. Often it's about keeping an eye out for a nice shot where there's something interesting going on with the light and having your camera handy.

I was careful to ensure that the light was just peeking between the leaves and I could see on the LCD that it was creating a nice sunburst effect as opposed to lens flare (lines or circles of light across your shot when too much light shines directly into the light).

I also used that very handy and simple to remember composition tip The Rule Of Thirds (where you divide your shot into thirds horizontally and vertically). I made sure that the burst of light was roughly on the intersection of two of the imaginary lines.

Heres the techie stuff from the camera too in case you're interested.

• Fujifil X10 - brilliant little compact camera (doesn't zoom very far but otherwise very good).
• Shot in Program Mode (Auto but gives you a bit more control over certain settings and stops your flash firing automatically).
• The camera automatically set the shutter speed at 1/320 (my subject was nice and bright) and an aperture of f/3.6, which is why the background is soft focus.
• Flash off - flash would have killed this shot.
• ISO 250 - we'd been walking through woods and I'd increased the ISO a little bit to make sure my shutter speed stayed at 1/60 at least, to ensure a steady shot.
• The only editing I did was to crop it square as it looked much stronger that way, so I chopped of a bit of the bottom and the top. Normally I mess about a bit in Photoshop but this really didn't need it.

I hope this was useful. If you have any questions please let me know. If you live in or near Cheshire why not book onto one of my courses and learn lots more!

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!