How to do sunset photos, part 1.

Sunset at Lac Bellevue, Alberta.

Everyone likes sunsets, but how do you photograph them?  Most people will use an auto mode on their cameras and click away.  The sun goes in the middle of the shot and nothing blocks its view.  That is certainly one method to photograph our closest star, but not the one I recommend.

The first issue with sunsets is that the sun is in the picture.  That may seem like a strange thing to say, but it is true.  The sun is very bright, and so is the sky above it.  All that brightness may cause a significant underexposure of the shot.  The other side of the coin relates to the fact that all foreground items will be backlit, rendering them very underexpossed.  I actually like that in a sunset, as the resulting silhouettes contrast nicely with the transitioning colours in the sky.  The reverse problem can occur though; too many darks may cause the camera to overexpose the scene and turn those lovely colours into ligher washed out hues.  Part of the problem also comes with composition; how much sky, water, and silhouettes are present in the image.

If you have watched a sunset for about an hour, until ten minutes or so after the sun disappears completely from view, you will know that it is highly variable in terms of lighting.  Both issues above, including the complication of composition, renders a low probability of success.  Instead, there is a much better technique which can be used to improve your chances of obtaining a photo you will be excited by.  The good news is that it is not too hard; the bad news is it means playing with your camera's settings.

Use a modest wide angle or telephoto setting, depending on what you are trying to do.  More zoom will give you a larger sun but less foreground substance.  Set your ISO to 100 (do not use auto ISO) and change your mode dial to manual.  Set your aperture to about f/8, and the shutter speed to 1/125th of a second.  If you only have a single command dial, your aperture is changed by pressing the exposure compensation button (+/-) and rotating the dial at the same time.  Next comes the tricky part.

Select the spot metering mode.  Put the camera to your eye and place the central spot (where the spot meter measures light) to a point beside the sun where it is bright but not overly so.  There is some latitude about where exactly that it, but the sun should be a modest distance away from the center spot.  Now, look at the meter in the viewfinder and rotate the command dial until it reads +1 stop overexposed.  Whatever shutter speed you end up with is the one you want.  If you find that your camera has a hard time with this, you can actually zoom in all the way and use the same technique to obtain your shutter speed value.  The whole idea is to meter off a small area of the scene, and zooming in helps with this.  Zoom back out to the focal length you want to use and take a photo.

If you are there for more than a few minutes repeat the procedure to get a new shutter speed.  As the sun continues to set you will have to adjust the shutter speed accordingly.  You can do this as long as you like.  If your shutter speed starts to get too long you may need a tripod.  I find most of my shots are around 1/250th of a second or so.  You should have brilliant colours in the sky, a nicely silhouetted foreground, and pleasantly coloured reflections off the water.

I will do another blog next day on how to use interesting silhouettes for foreground and will discuss shooting portraits of people with a sunset background.