Emphasizing Rays of Light

[kurtwall]

I have this shot taken at Half Moon Bay Sunday. The first is straight from the camera:



The second has a spot removed, some straightening, and minimal crop:



EXIF for the original shot:

• Camera: Nikon D60
• Exposure: 1/2500 sec
• Aperture: f/5.6
• Focal Length: 55 mm
• ISO Speed: 100
• Exposure Bias: 0 EV
• Flash: No Flash

What I'm looking for is suggestions about how emphasize the rays of light breaking through the clouds. I seem to recall being able to capture them better in the first place using smaller apertures, but that moment is gone. For someone who has Lightroom (actually using the version 3 beta), can you suggest how I might pull out those light rays?

I had tried cropping this so the horizon was on the bottom third, which looked better to me, but I lost the glow in the clouds at the top when I did that. Thanks for your input!

Kurt

[navcom]

Without actually going in and creating rays using Photoshop (artificial), the only way to properly capture them in front of the lens is if they are there to begin with. Sun rays are really not rays but light bouncing off particles in the air, such as smoke, haze, or water droplets. If there are no particles, there are no rays. Nothing you can do in-camera as far as I know. It looks like in your photo there was minimal particles.

Sorry...not much help!

[kurtwall]

Originally Posted by navcom

Without actually going in and creating rays using Photoshop (artificial), the only way to properly capture them in front of the lens is if they are there to begin with. Sun rays are really not rays but light bouncing off particles in the air, such as smoke, haze, or water droplets. If there are no particles, there are no rays. Nothing you can do in-camera as far as I know. It looks like in your photo there was minimal particles.

Sorry...not much help!

Well, it's good to know what can't be done, too. The shafts of light were there and were somewhat more prominent live than I captured in this shot. Okay, they weren't shafts of light beaming someone up to space or anything. Just sayin'...

In any event, I shot too quickly and did not pay attention to my aperture setting. Lesson learned. There will be other photons bouncing off airborne particles...