How to take a picture of a good sunset

The best equipment to take a good sunset photo:



What is everyone's favorite scene to capture? The scene that is taken everyday by a cell phone, a point and shoot, a Dslr, a film camera? The Sunset. Often times people capture the sunset on whatever they are taking it with and the sky looks good, but you can't see the foreground at all (water, rocks, land, beach, etc). And a lot of the times you're taking a picture of the sun directly, which at times can be beneficial. 

But I'm here to tell you the secrets of how to shoot a great looking sunset. The tricks to getting the sky perfect, having the foreground well lit, and at the peak times for capturing it. Because you don't want your photos to look like just anybody took them. You don't want your photos looking like EVERYONE else's photos that are right next to you. You want your photos to stand out and really pop! That is what photography is all about. Making your photos different than anybody else's, being unique. 

Setting up for the sunset can take some time. Like any photo you take, you want to make sure it has good composition, good lighting, the right detail, and the content that will make your pictures better than anybody else's. This could mean doing a longer exposure to make the waves or clouds look like they are moving, this could mean using different apertures to make the sun look like a star giving it a "star-burst" affect. So setting up early is very important. I recommend getting there an hour before the sun goes down and start looking for places to shoot. 

Things to look for while setting up for you sunset are rocks, trees, hills, plantation (the less buildings the better), light-towers, driftwood... get what I'm saying? When you are capturing a landscape sunset you want it to be landscape, not everyday buildings that we are surrounded by. The next time you visit an art gallery or photography gallery, see how many buildings or houses there are in their pictures.. Chances are you won't see any or maybe just one.Remember your guidelines for taking the sunset, rule of thirds. Like I said, they are guidelines, you don't HAVE to abide by them, but they are suggested. 

When to capture the sunset:

People usually capture the sunset as the sun is going down so they can get the sky, clouds, and the sun in the picture. They think since the sun is out that that is when the clouds will look the best... Not always the case. Have you ever heard of Twilight Hour? Twilight hour is known as the best time to take sunset pictures. Where you can capture a photo 30 minutes before the sun goes down, and up to 30 minutes after it goes down. I agree with about half of Twilight Hour. I believe capturing a sunset 30 minutes before the sun goes down will give you excellent results, but if you wait more than 15 minutes after it goes down, well then your photos will be nearly dark. 

Whats great about this hour is you get a huge variety of colors throughout the hour or 45 minutes in my case. It can even look like you took the same photos on different days with different sunsets. Once the sun goes down past the horizon doesn't mean it's over, wait for the next 15 minutes and many times it will bring you spectacular results! 

How to take a sunset photo:

Well what's there to know? You just point your camera at the sunset and shoot! Right? No. The trick to taking a good sunset (not all the time) is not even shooting towards the sun. Now why would you do this? Because shooting towards the sun will give you less contrast, more of a headache with the sun creating tons of highlights, and the sun not allowing you to balance your foreground and sky so well. I'm not saying you can't do it, because I have came out with some pretty awesome photos shooting directly at the sun while balancing out the sky/foreground. And I'll go more into in a little bit.. But back to what I was saying. During your twilight hour, try shooting at 90 degrees from the sun. (Make a L with you thumb and index and point your index towards the sun.. wherever your thumb points, shoot that way) So now that you are shooting 90 degrees from the sun you'll be able to use your CPL. Remember, you CPL works THE BEST when it is 90 degrees from the sun. When it's facing towards the sun, it will only be used as a ND filter. Now that you are facing 90 degrees, turn your CPL and see your colors shift to rich colors. 

What is also nice about not facing the sun it allows you to play with your exposures more. You're able to do quick short exposures or long exposures to create movement. You'll also see that the light is softer and warmer. 

Example:

As you can see in this photo, the sun is 90 degrees to the right of me. I was able to do a 1/2 second exposure to capture the water in movement. The photo as nice contrast as well and I was able to balance the whole scene. And this was taken 10 minutes after the sun went down.

Now for a photo that was taken 20 minutes before the sun went down:

Like stated above, this photo was taken before the sun went down. I was able to get soft light to give the rocks a nice warm look. Also you can see the water at a 1/2 second exposure. 


What settings should I have my camera at for a sunset?
Although there aren't any set rules, I tend to shoot in high Aperture numbers to get everything in focus and to give me a longer exposure time to play with. Often times people even shoot with different Apertures and shutter speeds for one photo and combined them later in programs called HDR, but that is for much later discussion. 


Shooting at a high Aperture number will help ensure that everything in your photo is in focus. Having the higher number like 18 or 22 will allow less light to come in allowing you to have a longer exposure as well. When it comes to shooting a sunset, you can't always rely on your light meter. Sometimes it is better to over expose your photo (according to your light meter) and sometimes it is better to underexpose it. Every photographer has their own style of shooting and their favorite preferences. Me, I like shooting in high numbers 90 degrees away from the sun with a CPL and doing longer exposures. But that's just me, other people prefer towards the sun. 


Why is my sky coming out good but not my foreground?
Many times this is because the sky you are shooting is too bright. Your camera reads the light that is the brightest and adjusts to that. That is why when you take a sunset with your camera phone, you usually just get the sunset and not the foreground. How can this be fixed?? Easy! 

Tiffen 77mm Color Graduated Neutral Density 0.6 Filter

Cokin H250A P-Series ND Grad Kit

Tiffen TCCGND9 P Series Color Grad ND 0.9 3-Stop Filter (Gray)


How does the ND Grad filter help? It helps by blocking the area of your photo that has more light (sun, clouds, rocks, etc) and helps even your exposure so the whole scene has the same lighting. This will give you a nice balanced photo all around. I HIGHLY recommend buying a ND Grad, it will change your photos significantly! 


Equipment for Sunset photos:
Wide angle lens




Circular Polarizer Filter



Neutral Density Filter



ND Grad Filter



Tripod




Cable Release

Learn Landscape Photography

Landscape Photography is one of the most popular forms of photography today. You can just walk around with your camera practically anywhere and shoot a good photo... But there are certain guidelines that are easy to follow to make a good Landscape Photo.


Equipment mentioned in this article:


What makes your photos better than everyone else's? 
What I believe along with very experienced landscape photographers is finding a scenery that stands out. When you are setting up for a photo, what stands out about this photo that NOBODY else thought to take or NOBODY else could take because YOU and only you have that eye for that particular photo. That is why professional photographers have galleries.. it's not because they took 1 lucky photo and it just happened to catch everyones attention, but it's because they go out of their way to find all those perfect photos. They climb mountains, they crawl in the snow, they drive for hours and hours out of the way, they wait for days and days at a time for just the right moment to capture what nobody else can. That's what makes a great Landscape Photographer.


But not everyone starts out like that. We all have to start somewhere. If it's just shooting a sunset from your backyard, or shooting a cityscape at night, we all have to start somewhere.


An example:

I took this photo my first month I began photography. I had no idea what I was doing and I had a point n shoot camera. Hell, I even took this photo on Auto. At first you may think, well I see nothing wrong with it.. Sure there is nothing wrong with it, but it's boring. There's no sunset, no clouds, no mist, no nothing! It's just boring.

But an image like this really shines! It stands out amongst the rest.There is fog, a sunset, a starburst from the sun, a nice tight crop of the bridge.


Well what makes a good Landscape Photo?
There isn't just one thing that makes a good landscape photo, but several.


Here are some things that help make a great photo:
-Clouds. A good looking sky makes a photo stand out. Clouds that show impact. I don't mean clouds that look just like overcast and all look the same. They need to be big white puffy clouds, dark evil twisted clouds, thick strong clouds.. Clouds can make or a break a photo. You can have a gorgeous landscape but with an overcast sky and that will ruin your photo.


-Contrast. Having contrast will make your photo look sharp and defined. When there is good contrast you can have rich strong colors that will stand out and make your photo shine. To have good contrast, make sure not to Overexpose your photos. Even underexposing your photos by a half stop to a stop will add nice contrast to them. Also having a good Circular Polarizer and/or Neutral Density filter will give you nice color contrast.

-Sharpness. Having a sharp photo will overall give your photo a nice touch. In Landscape Photography, it is key to having everything sharp. When you take a photo that you are proud of and want to have it enlarged and find out that many things are blurry from camera shake, you're going to be upset and disappointed! You can avoid all of that by shooting at high F-stop # and/or using a tripod. 

-Depth of Field. DoF can make your photo really stand out give your viewers perspective on what is actually there.
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Well then what does a bad photo look like??

This is a photo that I took when I first started getting into photography. I didn't know anything about balancing the exposure for the sky and the foreground. I was very happy with the results of this photo when I first took it because I thought it was a good sunset and the water looked like it was moving.

I circled 3 obvious thing that are wrong with this photo. First the sky is overexposed due to the long exposure I used to achieve the moving water effect. Then there is the horizon. The horizon isn't straight and even if it is slightly off in photos when you first take them or post them onto your website, when you print them up and frame them the whole thing is just ruined! Always get the horizon straight! Next is the big black wave that looks like a wall. If I would of done a longer exposure to make that appear to be in motion it would have came out much different.

Solution for the photo:

Having the ND Grad filter would of evened out my exposure allowing me to have a great looking sunset. The clouds wouldn't be over exposed and I would have much more even tones throughout the picture.



The photo could of also looked better if the horizon was straight. There are levels that you can put on your camera and now they even have levels on tripods.

A Neutral Density filter would of blocked out more light allowing me to have a much longer exposure to have that wave that looks like a black wall look much better, like moving water.



Another poor photo

What's wrong with this photo? Better yet, how can we make it better for next time?
The clouds look good. They show a lot of impact and they catch your eye right off the bat and they're well exposed, but whats so wrong with this photo? I see this photo taken millions of times by people and then posted on facebook soon afterwards. Well other than the water being underexposed, nothing really stands out about this photo. Your photo needs to be one that not EVERYONE takes with their iphone or point and shoot camera.


For next time, there needs to be Depth of Field. This photo looks like just a nice sky and some water at the bottom of it. What makes a great Landscape photo is great Depth of Field.You need to make the photo have Depth to it that gives you perspective of how hard the waves are crashing, how fast the water is moving, how big the ocean is, how big the rocks are, etc... Get me? Things like rocks, driftwood, boulders, piers, trees, and people add perspective and DoF. 


Sooo... A good photo looks like???

What makes this a good photo??
Other than the nice colors (all natural colors with small saturation) there are many factors that makes this photo good. First you can see that the whole photo grabs your attention. You see the colors all around and the waves are in movement. The boulder, person in the background, house, and sand give the picture Dept of Field. In this photo I used a CPL, ND Grad, and a high Aperture # to allow me to give a 1/2 second exposure during the day. This photo also shows nice contrast throughout the photo as you can see the sharpness in the clouds, waves, and rocks.

In the photo above you can see a nice even exposure throughout it. ***A hint for capturing sunsets*** You do not always have to point your camera toward the sun. Try pointing it about 90 Degrees from the sun. Not only will it help you get a better exposure, but you'll get much better colors because the sun will reflect more in the clouds. As you can see in this photo the sun has already passed the pier I am on. This photo gives nice DoF with the "leading lines" (lines going toward you) from the railing, the pier, the shadows, and the light posts. Contrast is easily seen with all the different colors, shadows, and highlights from top to bottom.