Sunflare

Recently I entered a photo competition on Gurushots with the theme sunflares.  If you havent heard about this site, it really is a fun competition site.  There really isn't prizes, it is much more for exposure than anything.   When you post a group of photos to the competition, you have to vote on the other photos to gain exposure on your photos.  I was scrolling through the photos and saw many starburst that quite honestly looked like they were added in Photoshop.  The sunflare looked too perfect to be real.  I didn't vote for them because I felt that it was not appropriate to the competition. 

I know feel as if I was too harsh on my judging, here is why.  I just recently purchased a Sony A6300 camera, call it an upgrade of sorts from my Canon 70d.  I went out last night to catch a sunset picture.  I was driving around about 10 min before sunset and finally found a spot to take the photo.  It was one of the many old graveyards in the area.  I lined up my shot and fired off a couple of practice shots to make sure I like the composition.  I happen to catch a sunflare in one of the test shots.

I knew there was a sunflare in the shot, but I didn't really see how good it looked until I got back to the house and started going through the photos on the computer.   It was amazing, in fact it was so good it looked like it was photoshopped.  I started thinking about it and realized that I was judging Gurushots too harshly for fake sunflares when in fact they were most likely natural, but with a lens similar to the one I shot with.

I shot this with the a6300, using the kit lens, with an aperture of f16.  It turned out great.  Thank you Sony for developing such a beautiful lens.