Photo Steve
How To Shoot Sunset Photos
This is another installment of photography tips from Steve Kristof. Steve is a photographer and photo educator who also writes for and contributes images to the popular free photography learning site www.FreePhotoCourse.com. Visit for free tips, free desktop images, a photographers' forum and much more!
Picture this; you're on vacation at an all-inclusive in a tropical destination of your choice. As you walk along the pristine stretch of beach, feeling the cozy sand beneath your feet and the warm water lapping at your toes, something else waits in store. It's a show like no other and it doesn't really matter whether you're waking up to it or saying "adios" to it – when the sun is near the horizon it can light-up the sky with fiery color.
Like most people, you reach for your camera, because of course you want to capture this beauty to look at again and again (and of course to show-off to friends and family).
What usually happens is a bit of disappointment, and it's not so much when you review the image on that tiny LCD screen on the back of your camera. When you see your precious sunset or sunrise photos on the larger monitor of your computer or in print, they somehow seem to lack the depth and saturation of color that you remember. So, what's the secret to making a spectacular sunset or sunrise look spectacular photographically-speaking?
1. Put the "Ball" under or Just Above the Horizon
The bottom line here is that the sky's color will be more intense as the sun stays below or just above the horizon. With sunsets, most people are so enamored with the big red ball that they finish their photo work before the show even begins. When conditions are right, take a look at the sky just AFTER the sun sets. That's when things really get exciting!
2. Look For the Right Conditions
A perfectly clear and cloud-less sky is not necessarily the best recipe for a gorgeous sunset or sunrise. This type of sky – often produced by a high-pressure atmospheric condition – generally lacks the moisture required to filter the sun's rays, thus producing the colors we so desire.
Instead, look for high wispy clouds. The thin and stretched-out nature of cirrus clouds seems to work best for either sunset or sunrise images. Nimbus clouds, as long as they are widely scattered, can also work well. Cumulus clouds – the big puffy ones – can also do a nice job, but if they are too big at the horizon they can totally obscure the show itself. Small cumulus clouds scattered here and there around the horizon can lead to amazing corona images, where the sun's golden rays create stunning fringes around the puffy cloud.
3. Know How Long You Have
A general rule of thumb suggests that sunrise photo opp's are usually gone within thirty to forty-five seconds after the sun rises, assuming that the horizon is clear. As the sun rises, its intensity increases very quickly and dramatically, meaning that it gets too bright to show selective color.
By contrast, sunsets give you much more time to work with. A sunset can cause a photographable and exciting glow in the sky for up to forty-five minutes after the ball sinks below the horizon.
4. Brighter is Not Better
One very common mistake most novice and many amateur photographers make is to let too much light into the camera when composing a sunrise or sunset image. In "auto" exposure mode, most cameras tend to overexpose sunsets. Although the sky is ablaze with color and fire, its luminosity is not that great. As a result, the camera's auto exposure feature will program itself for a brighter picture. The problem with this is that the image will be washed-out and all of the intense colors will look rather bland - certainly not what you imagined or experienced at the time.
Even if you use a pre-programmed "sunset" setting on your point-and-shoot camera, the image may still have some exposure issues, being either too dark or too light. You are much better off using a fully manual setting, if available. This way you can "bracket" your exposures and take multiple sunrise/sunset shots while you are there, each exposure being a bit darker and brighter up and down the scale. Wait until you get home or to your studio to pull-up the images and see which one is best and which one represents the sunset with the most intensity and balance.
If you don't know how to use your camera's manual exposure settings, it would be worthwhile learning. Having a camera with manual exposure capability but not ever learning how to use it is, by metaphor, like having a dishwasher but never learning how to put detergent into it. You can do so much more with manual technique and it spans all genres of photography. www.FreePhotoCourse.com is a fantastic site that teaches all there is to know about manual exposure control. It's totally free - no signups necessary, so be sure to check it out and expand your photography ability.
There's more to know about photographing sunrises and sunsets, along with some beautiful visual examples. See the extended "How To Shoot Sunsets" article and much more at www.FreePhotoCourse.com for more tips and techniques. Visit soon and take advantage of comprehenstive all-free lessons on a variety of photography topics, free desktop images, contributors' gallery, photo forum, camera and gear store and more!
Article written by Steve Kristof, all rights reserved.
About the Author
Steve Kristof is a writer and a professional instructor in broadcast media production and photography. He also writes articles and contributes imgages for the popular free photography course website www.FreePhotoCourse.com,
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