Sunburst Shot on Top of Europe, Jungfraujoch

I love sunburst. Whenever I have got the chance, with the sun slightly on top of me with some angle with my subject underneath and in front of me, I would stop down the Aperture of my camera and start shooting for a sunburst effect. Though camera’s light metering don’t always get the exposure right on the first attempt, a few adjustments will get you what you want.

Some EXIF info: Photo taken with my Nikon D7000 and Nikkor 18-105mm lens. Shutter speed 1/160sec and Aperture f20. Focus distance was set to 18mm. ISO 100. Auto White Balance. No flash fired and -1/3 stops of exposure being compensated with Matrix metering. Stop down to smaller Aperture to capture sunburst and compensate exposure to capture deep blue sky.

This shot was taken on Jungfraujoch “Top of Europe”, overseeing Jungfrau glacier summit, the highest summit in the Bermese Alps of Switzerland with an altitude of 4158m. I was lucky to have Nikon D7000 with me at that moment which captured the sunburst perfectly as how I expected it to be with my first attempt. D7000’s exposure metering with its 2,016 RGB sensor had again done a great job.

However, with that super duper small Aperture of f20, I also realized that my D7000’s image sensor had serious dust problems! I’ll talk about my dirty image sensor next. Come back for that important but easily overlooked camera’s maintenance issue.

After all, I was lucky to have a perfect weather with perfect sunlight and clear sky while traveling in Switzerland, especially on “Top of Europe”. Great natural lighting are always the only most important factor in great travel photography. – Travel Feeder, your ultimate photo travel blog

About The Author

Cecil Lee

The author is an avid traveler and photography hobbyist who loves to share with others his travel and photo-taking experience in many popular tourist destinations around Europe, Asia and Australasia. Read the exciting stories with many photos captured on his journeys.