Sun Rays

I have looked at a lot of sunset photos and on some of them the suns rays come right out at you; the rays add such a beautiful touch to the photo, How do you get that effect? Filters?

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Comment by Robert Davis on January 24, 2013 at 5:18pm: I quote Jeffrey's comment, "Good answer Anon."

Comment by Jeffrey Moore on January 23, 2013 at 1:23pm: Good answer Anon.

Comment by Anon A. Mouse on January 23, 2013 at 10:33am: "Classic" light ray photo:

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/MID/031-nytgrandcentral.jpg

Comment by Anon A. Mouse on January 23, 2013 at 10:29am: Mostly what you need is luck and having a camera with you at the right time, but you probably knew that.

Seriously, photographing those all depends on having the right conditions. There's no magic filter for producing that light. ( I think someone really good with an image editor, an artist, might be able to "paint in" something similar, but it would be very hard to really make it look right.)

What you need are:

Some dust, mist or smoke in the air to show the light. Often there's enough dust, but right after a rain the air's sometimes very clean. The more stuff there is in the air the easier it is to see light shining through it.

Something to block most of the light so there are only a few "spotlights" of light coming through. Often that'll be through broken clouds, but windows and other things can work. (There's a very nice image of sunbeams coming through Grand Central Terminal's windows, in NYC, but people smoked in those days.) There have to be narrow beams so you can see, or photograph them against something darker.

It helps a lot if the light is coming toward the camera rather than away, but don't let bright light fall on the lens. Best to stand in a shadow, or shade the lens opening.

A polarizing filter might help a little, sometimes, if adjusted to darken everything else and favor the light rays, but if things are changing fast I probably wouldn't take time to try that.

There's a very nice, old book that explains all this, and a lot more that photographers might find interesting. It's even cheap. "The Nature of Light and Color in the Open Air" by M.Minnaert. The paperback is $12 at Amazon. (There's also a $100 hardcover, slightly newer edition, with color photos.)