Sunset Hints and Tips please for newbie

[May Park]

Hi,
Please can you give a complete novice a few hints/tips/ideas on photography of sunsets.

My local camera club has asked we all take in a sunset photo next month and was wondering if any of you kind people would maybe give me a few pointers to taking a good sunset picture.

I have an entry level camera, a Nikon D3200 with the kit lens (18-55mm) it came with, so pretty basic.

Many thanks in advance.
Karen

[Colin Southern]

Hi Karen,

- Use a tripod because exposure times will be too long to hand-hold.

- Wait until the sun has gone down (and shoot for the next hour or so) because the lighting will be more even (no bright sun to destroy the exposure)

- Shoot RAW (so you have the full range of info to work with)

- Use a narrow aperture so you can get the longest exposure (smooths out water / blurs clouds etc)

- Don't forget to include a good foreground in the composition

I do lots of sunset shots - so you might get some ideas here:

http://www.pbase.com/cjsouthern/all_images

[May Park]

Thanks Colin.

Fantastic pictures
http://www.pbase.com/cjsouthern/all_images

[Colin Southern]

Thanks Colin.

Fantastic pictures
http://www.pbase.com/cjsouthern/all_images

Thanks

But now - lets get yours posted so we can start giving you hints and tips to make them better!

[William W]

. . . lets get yours posted so we can start giving you hints and tips to make them better!

+1

[Shadowman]

Hi Karen,

What is the structure of your camera club, what are the usual topics, how long have you been a member? Are there more advanced members in the group and perhaps the rest is trying to catch up? I find it odd that the club would give you an assignment without some preparedness before sending you out in the field?

[nkpliangjk58]

I'm a newbie too,greetings

[Nomadr]

sunsets are ten a penny and they are mostly pretty dull, Colin gave some great advice and if i could pick up on one, "include good foreground composition",imagine taking a pic of a sunset/sunrise with sky/sea and sunset in the middle, pretty basic shot, now imagine taking a close up of a pear on a pear tree with the sunrise glistening through the dew drop from the base of a pear ? that is foreground interest :-) cheers martyn

[Tringa]

Good advice here already.

Spend time planning and choosing your location. Colin and Martyn have alluded to this, that it is easy to take a sunset and end up with just a lot of pretty colour. There are time when this will work - the intense colours/cloud shapes will make the picture but in some cases the eye can be left wandering.

What looked like a promising sunset can fizzle out altogether (and vice versa) so the weather forecast is a useful starting point.

Think about how long it will take you to get to your chosen location. The sun sets very quickly and it is easy to miss a good shot because you were not there in time - I've done it many a time.

I and quite a few others use this - http://photoephemeris.com/

It is free for PCs and Macs and shows the direction and time of sunset (and rise) anywhere on Earth. It is very useful for spotting possible interesting locations.

I also find looking at the Ordnance Survey map of an area useful. Buying maps can be expensive but Bing Maps -

http://www.bing.com/maps/?FORM=MMREDR

have an OS overlay (it is on the drop down arrow next to the word "Road"). You need to be zoomed in quite a bit to get the OS overlay to work but there is a wealth of detail on OS maps that, with the Photographer's Ephemeris, can help to choose a potentially good location.

This may not be in the brief of the assignment you were given by your club, but my view is that a sunset photograph is a photograph taken at or around sunset, but not necessarily of the sunset. Sometimes interesting shots, with beautiful golden light, can be found by looking at 90 or 180 degrees away from the sun.

Dave

[bnnrcn]

Hi Karen,

Try to use the widest angle on your lens (18 mm) to get most of the sky with lovely colours into your frame and try to shoot from a lower angle and include some foreground objects into the frame, especially if you shoot by the sea.

If you expose for the sky , the objects on the ground will be dark like a silhouette . So you might as well try some silhouette photos of trees ,fishermen or boats in the sunset.

A remote release might be helpful in order not to shake your camera on the tripod.


And most important thing, have fun !!

[krispix]

Hi Karen,

Colin has given you some good advice, but I wouldn't rule the sun out. Some of my best studies have been straight into the shining sun (to quote 'Pink Floyd'). However, you do have to be particularly careful about the exposure. You cannot rely on the camera's meter and you may have to take multiple readings and possibly even multiple exposures to HDR in processing. Almost certainly you will need a Neutral Density Graduated filter even if you wait, as Colin suggests, until after sundown.

Also, even though smooth water and blurry clouds are today's fashion there will be times when those clouds lit from below need to be sharp and clean.

The best advice anyone can give is get out out there and take some pictures, then post them up here. As long as you can take criticism, knowing it will be constructive, that will be your quickest route.

Good luck

[Glenn NK]

Interestingly on another forum frequented by many photographers for whom photography is full time, a question was posed:

"If you had to choose one focal length and one focal length only for landscapes, what would you choose?".

The most common choice was 24 mm - by quite a margin.

Incidentally the range of FL's was from 12 mm to 200 mm.

I am very loathe to recommend to anyone what FL lens to use for anything, let alone landscape photography.

Plenty of good advice here but don't forget to take some salt with it.

My advice would be - do what pleases you.

[LocalHero1953]

If you're shooting raw, you don't NEED to worry about white balance when you take the photo. But for sunsets I prefer to set WB to Daylight anyway so that it is not far from what I want when I get to post processing. Auto WB would certainly produce bland sunset colours in a jpg, though in a raw file you can correct them.

[qbengnpre49]

that will be your quickest route.

[rpcrowe]

Here's a suggestion... Bracket exposures. Unfortunately the Nikon Gods failed to include Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) on the 3200. I suggest that you shoot manual exposure and bracket the exposure by adjusting the shutter speed.

Here are some pointers on adjusting exposure using manual on the 3200,
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/art...30034&seqNum=6

BTW: Canon's AEB is great. Just select AEB (you can select the amount of exposure variation) and select burst. That gives you three bracketed shots every time you press the shutter button and then the camera will stop. They have included this control on every one of their DSLR cameras...

I have found it best to do a reconnaissance or the area if possible before the shoot in order to get some ideas...

Finally, some photographers use amber graduated filters to make the sky look more orange. I hate this phony looking practice and would rather adjust the image in post processing.

NIK Viveza with its control points is really neat for adjusting sunset images...

[elfbob]

Here's some advice that's helpful: read the camera instruction manual to get a working idea of what factors can be adjusted in your camera for the various operating modes, e.g. A, Tv, Av, Program Auto or M. You didn't mention how versed you are with post processing. If your 3200 can try capturing in both RAW & jpeg, with jpeg the camera's software will alter the image falling on the camera sensor by factors you can set or the factory default settings whereas with RAW the native image is recorded as it falls on the image sensor. I find that WB(white balance) can be used to enhance sunset images by setting it to "shade" or "flash" depending on the amount of reds to orange you want to add to the image, heck try an exposure at each of the WB settings & review the effect on the camera's image review lcd for what you like. When you gain a smidgen of practice try using a graduated ND(neutral Density) filter with sunsets to capture the disc at the horizon.
All of foregoing suggestions have merit. If you want to learn image artistry try putting the mode selector to M & learn to set the aperture, shutter speed & ISO. I don't know much about post processing other than to remove compositional errors & slightly adjust some lighting aspects. When you capture in RAW format you need to process the images as no in camera adjustments are usually made.
Digital imaging is super dooper to learn with as you get immediate results on the camera's lcd. Experiment with your camera & have fun, cheers bob