The setting sun is one of the glories of the day and possibly the best memory of a vacation. But it takes some skill to produce photos that stand out from the crowd.
First off, decide what you will include in your shot. Go to the site an hour ahead (you might want to look up the time of sunset earlier in the day), and walk around. See what scenes you might want to include and what objects you might want to place in the foreground of the shot for interest. (Silhouettes in the foreground are a valuable compositional device.) Plan to bring a tripod.
You might even go over the possible exposures in your mind. (It is best to use the smallest possible aperture is to increase depth of field.) Even though the sun is going down, it is important not to look directly at it when it is too bright. A rule of thumb I use is to hold my fist up to the horizon; I can shoot when the sun is below that. Frankly I have also looked directly at the sun when it is higher, but I am here to tell you I have read enough to know that is a very dangerous thing for your eyes and the camera itself. IT ISN’T WORTH IT! It is particularly important to never look directly at the sun through a long lens, which magnifies the light.
Begin taking the shots a half hour or so ahead of the event– the clouds take on wonderful colors before and after sunset. There is something exciting too about photographing the sun continuously as it dips below the horizon.
Plan to shoot at a variety of focal lengths –sometimes a wide panorama is best; sometimes you will want to narrow the field.
Sometimes the lack of contrast makes it hard to focus when the camera is on automatic; sometimes the shot won’t work at all and sometimes the camera misfocuses, but you won’t notice the fuzz until later. So make sure you take a fair number of shots on manual focus!
Remember the rule of thirds, and keep the major elements of your shots off center.
Make sure you experiment. You may choose aperture priority to make sure you have adequate depth of field. I like to experiment by shooting on manual (bracketing), once I have chosen the basic exposure from program priority. Manual shooting makes you familiar with the exposures that work in various settings. I like to see the effects of more or less exposure (or even flash in the foreground) on the clouds as they are lit up by the dying of the light.
Here are some other sunset shots I took this summer in Bailey Island, a beautifully isolated spot on Casco Bay, an hour from Portland.
About Janet Ochs Lowenbach
hello
I am trying out sunset pictures but I seem to fail to capture the red and oranges as they appear.
I have also used a point & about which pics up all the variety of colours & esp with the clouds?
I wondered if you could give any advice on the settings/ technique?
many thanks
Hello Nj,
Following will be my recommendations for shooting Sunset.
1. Use wide angle lens (if you have any), otherwise telephoto will work.
2. Put your White Balance to cloudy.
3. Shoot with lowest ISO possible to avoid noise.
4. Use Grad ND filer (if available). It will help to saturate the colors in the sky.
5. Use small aperture like f/11, f/16 or f/22 to get deep depth of field.
6. Use slower Shutter speed to meter exposure correctly and
7. Use tripod to avoid any camera movement during long exposure shooting.
Happy Shooting!
Hello
Thanks for that! I’m using most of those techniques…
I’m using the kit lens- 18-105, but still don’t get the oranges & reds.
I have a nd 10 stop filter but think that’s too dark to use for sunsets?!
Any other advice?
I’m in Sri Lanka at the moment do hoping to get some great shots from the last few nights
Thanks
You can also try bracketing shots (underexposed, normal and overexposed) and combine them using software. How about shooting in RAW and apply some post processing to extract the colors?
Hi
Ok- I’ve not tried post processing raw files. Assume you have an article on that?
And also on HDR merging?
It’s rather annoying it’s harder work than a normal point & shoot for a sunset!
Hi Nj,
I haven’t written any article on how to post process and merge to make HDR image but planning to do so in the future. The main reason for postponing them is, they are more explanatory in visual media than writing a long article.
Excellent list of suggestion, Umesh!
Happy Shooting!