4 Big Tips for Stunning Sunset/Sunrises

Erik Bernskiold — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:00:41 +0000

A couple of weeks ago we took a look at how to pleasantly photograph flowers and now I was thinking to follow this up with how to capture stunning sunset/sunrise photos. My goal is that you should be able to take these tips with you in mind out the next time you are shooting and think about a couple of them, try them and see your photography potentially get better!

Get Down Low!

A vital thing for any landscape in general is to photograph them in an angle that you typically don’t look at them. Normally when we as humans look at a sunset in this case, we either are standing up in full height, or sitting down on the ground or on a bench. To get nicer photos, get down even lower, perhaps so low so that you might need to lie flat down on the ground in order to be able to see through the viewfinder (of if you have LiveView this will help a lot). My recommendation is to shoot it from as low as possible in order to create more depth in the scene as opposed to getting up high!

The Sun Is Not Important!

This may sound a little odd at first, but the sun is really not the important element in a sunset or sunrise scene! Think about it, when you sit around and watch a sunset without a camera, what are you looking at? Definitely not the sun! Rather, you look at the colors. All the beautiful colors that the setting sun creates in the clouds and the beautiful light is lets on the landscape around.

What you want to do in most cases (good exceptions may very well apply), is to make sure the sun is either shaded by a cloud or even below the horizon. The most beautiful colors that you can get in a photo is when the sun has just set below the horizon line, or just before it comes up!

The Foreground Is Important!

Sunsets and sunrises are quite hard scenes to shoot in that they need to be great all over. While a colorful sky may be nice to look at normally, just a colorful sky will just not do it when it comes to a photo. You need to have both that colorful sky, that interesting foreground and maintain a good exposure throughout. Look for rocks, a pier, something extending into the water if you are near water, grass that catches the beautiful light being cast or any object that makes it interesting. A tip with the water: Bring a dark neutral density filter with you that can bring down the exposure to speeds of about 5+ seconds. This will allow you to have the water blurred and onto the so-called “silky effect”. It adds a lot of impact in the water and makes it seem full of movement!

Don’t Let Rain Deter You!

The best shots that can be had is after a storm clears. Storm- and rain clouds are usually really dark and dense which catches up the color of the sunset beautifully and enhances it.

You’d be surprised at how fast these clouds can break up. I was sitting at home (I’m about ten minutes away from the ocean by car) while it was raining hard outside thinking that the sunset shoot was going to waste, until I began seeing some really beautiful colors appearing in the clouds. Still raining hard, I quickly hurried to one of my favorite spots nearby, set up and man! The rain stopped pretty much when I got there and the clouds started to clear up a bit and I had a scene that just kept getting different and different every second and I got a lot of great photos that evening (photo on the right from that evening)!

So, moral of the story is to get out even if it looks like the rain isn’t going to stop. Even if it doesn’t, bring some rain-cover and shoot form underneath. You can still get the incredible color and amazing photos!

Finally, get out there this weekend and shoot! I’ll definitely do that myself and if the weather is on my side (not the best, not the worst), I’ll hopefully have some sunset photos to share with you!

Happy Shooting!

Soirée pacifiques

Erik Bernskiold — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 08:33:05 +0000

This was taken yesterday at a beach just by the house I’m staying in here on the island of Northkoster. Really beautiful sunset at a very beautiful beach. The title "Soirée pacifiques" are French for peaceful evening.

Landscape Shoot

Erik Bernskiold — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 20:18:53 +0000

Finally the two factors, time and weather were booth right so I could finally get some nice shots of a just wonderful sunset (pictured at the left). I’m glad the weather held up as well finally because I’ve been dying to test my new Sigma 10-20 lens (more about it in the post below). I must say it performs very well and I’m very happy with it