How to Shoot a Sunrise and Sunset

Sunsets and sunrises are, without a doubt, some of the most photographed natural events across the world which really isn't all that surprising given that every morning/night, somewhere in the world there is a stunning, vibrantly lit sky, bathing the landscape in wonderful colours as the sun first rises over and then sinks below the horizon.

But they are also one of the most challenging scenes to capture well; the contrast is enormous, the shutter speeds can be quite slow and surprisingly often the sunset or sunrise on its own just doesn't cut the mustard.

It all starts with the sky...

An HDR sunset. Although there are clouds low in the
atmosphere, they are not widespread and there are higher
clouds present to reflect the light of the sunset.

The most important thing is to plan it. The colours sweep across the sky so quickly, that often, by the time you realise it's a great sunset, it is gone in the time it takes you to get your camera ready and find a good location. And ever worse, who wants to get up before dawn, only to be met with a boring dull sky?

So how do we know when a good sunrise or sunset is on its way? Well the key is to look to the sky and take note of the clouds, what they look like and where they are in the sky they are.

The clouds we're looking for are high up in the atmosphere (if you're into geek-speak we're looking for cirrus and alto level clouds!). These are characteristically thin, whispy clouds with little vertical development or depth. Because they're thin and high up in the atmosphere they tend not to kill a sunrise or sunset like clouds lower in the atmosphere do and the colours also tend to last longer and spread over more of the sky.

We also want to have a relatively clear horizon to allow all that wonderful light to percolate through the atmosphere and light up our clouds.

Find a good location...

An interesting foreground - in this case the silhouettes of
dawn anglers - can provide interest to a scene and really
set off, in this case, a sunrise.

As stunning as the colours may be, often they aren't enough to hold their own in a photograph. To overcome this, we still want to find interesting, complementary foregrounds.

The classic foreground is one that works well silhouetted against the sky. To work well as a silhouette, shape is the key. Think about things like a lonely dead tree on the landscape, an old bit of machinery or perhaps an interesting, identifiable cityscape.

But don't only go for the silhouette. Think outside the square and search out other foregrounds that will provide interest and depth to the image such as a water body - either reflecting the sunset or seeing through onto the bottom.

Be prepared!

The wonderful thing about a sunrise/sunset is that it is dynamic. The colours, tones and shapes change every minute of the sun's journey across the sky and you don't want to miss a second of it.

In the case of a sunrise, scope the area in the days before you plan to head out. If you wait until the morning of your planned shoot it will most likely be the case that you are still frantically searching for a good vantage point as the first rays of the day crest the horizon. 

For a sunset, get there with plenty of time to spare. The last thing you want to worry about is scurrying around in the dark trying to find a good vantage point. This can not only put a dent in your shoot, but can also pose a danger to your safety if you're in unfamiliar country.

Getting there with plenty of time will also allow you to scope out your area for the best vantage point and foreground interest. Take the time to walk around with your camera, frame potential shots and get to know your scene.

Control the exposure...

As I briefly alluded to in the opening, the dynamic contrast present in a typical sunrise/sunset scene is quite enormous, so large that you may think your only choice is either a well exposed sunset and a black foreground or a well exposed foreground and a blown out sky.

But there are a couple of things you can to avoid this...

You don't always have to shoot directly into the sun!
This image is looking almost 90 degrees from the sun,
however it still captures the soft pastel hues of the sunset
while still having a good exposure on the foreground and
through the landscape.

First up is to avoid shooting directly into the sunset. You would be surprised at how quickly the light levels drop off as you move around the horizon away from the sun. Try and find a balance between brightness and colour/interest in the sky.

If you're ready to take the plunge into more serious digital editing, you can try taking a series of exposures of the same scene and later create a high dynamic range (HDR) image. This process takes information from a number of different exposures and blends the well exposed areas into a single image. Be warned though, if not done well results can be sickeningly tacky and simply look wrong!

Another option is to invest in some special filters called graduated neutral density filters. Essentially these  are like sunglasses for your camera except that they are clear at the bottom and gradually get darker across the filter to the top. This has the effect of darkening the sky whilst maintaining the light levels of the foreground and in doing so, evening out the exposure. The filters are generally available in range from 1 stop through to 3 stop.

It is generally good practice, regardless of the method you choose, to expose with a bias towards the highlights. When we look at a sunset with our naked eye, we expect to see dark areas of shadow; we don't expect to see a blown out sky with weak colours. The same is true for a photograph!

Have the right gear...

Good gear doesn't necessarily equate to a good image; this is especially true if the person using it doesn't know how to utilise it to their advantage. But it is often difficult to get a good image without good gear.

At the very least you're going to want a sturdy tripod, a wide lens (anything from 16mm-40mm @35mm format equivalent) and a cable release. To go that bit extra invest in some graduated neutral density filters (as above), a remote shutter release and some good HDR software if you want to go down that path.

Go forth and shoot the sun!

I hope you have enjoyed my return to the more informative "how-to" type blogs and that you have gleaned some gems from it.

If you have, please share your results with me either here on my Facebook Page you can also follow me on Twitter

In this case the pre-dawn light has resulted in fairly even
tones across the scene whilst still creating some beautiful,
soft pastel colours in the sky and across the rocks. A long
exposure has caught the tumultuous motion of the ocean too

#7 - 52 Weeks Lit Up

A bit of a change this week. All my strobe gear had to be packed away to make room for the visiting in-laws so I tried to keep things to a single speedlight.

Years ago, when I first discovered off-camera lighting, I'd seen a style that is great for lighting up glass items in a product type shot.

Now back then, with the limit of a tethered flash, I couldn't really push the speedlight to where I wanted to. But that's all history now.

So the premise of the shot is to create a strongly back-lit environment. By utilising backlighting with glass objects you can just about eliminate those ugly reflections that plague front-lit images. The back lighting also does a great job of highliting the curvature of the glass structure as the light is reflected at different angles across the curved surface.

This week also saw Valentine's Day come and go and in keeping with this annual excuse for florists and jewelers to make a killing I used my wife's rose bouquet (you didn't actually think I'd be silly enough to not indulge my Valentine) as the main subject matter.

The half full beer was used for setting up and to balance the overwhelmingly soppy theme...

Unfortunately for my background I had to resort to a bit of calico (I ironed it at least!) so the first thing I had to do was completely blow it out to white.

To do this I simply moved the background so that it was 1m or so behind the bottle with the bottle on a table. The speedlight was on a stand under the table point up toward the background and out of view.

You can see how the backlighting really highlights the shape of the bottle and adds depth to the image not to mention the rich colour of the delightful amber nectar!

With the lighting sorted I moved the bottle back to my end of the table (it's important to keep well hydrated on a lazy Sunday) and brought in the flowers...

With the flower buds I moved in for some more abstract types...

And the pick of the bunch, converted to monochrome with a straw tint...

The pick... ISO100, 1/200s, f/11 @ 200mm. Speedlight at 1/8 power

One thing I'd like to see next time is more of a gradient across the background. There's a hint of it in the last image, but I'd like to see it more pronounced and I think the best way to achieve this would be to snoot the speedlight. One fore next time...

Please feel free to leave feedback or to discuss, criticise, question anything I've covered in this or any other blog, subscribe to this blog to make sure you don't miss anything and be sure to visit and 'like' my facebook page and follow me on twitter.

Thanks for reading!!!

Will

#6 - 52 Weeks Lit Up

On the back of No. 5, I wanted to continue the theme, but move it outside.

This was as simple as the week before with a single speedlite  into an umbrella on a monopod. The hardest thing for this setup was trying to keep Lilly still and occupied!

"I see the light!" ISO 100, 1/200s, f/8 speedlight on 1/2 power
into an umbrella directly above her on a monopod

Given a bit more time I would have like to make more use of the grape vines as a background, but this was taken between vacuuming and mopping of the floors, dinner and ultimately bed!

Please feel free to leave feedback or to discuss, criticise, question anything I've covered in this or any other blog, subscribe to this blog to make sure you don't miss anything and be sure to visit and 'like' my facebook page and follow me on twitter.

Thanks for reading!!!

Will

#5 - 52 Weeks Lit Up

So no doubt you would have worked out that there was no post for last week. Unfortunately the realities of fatherhood, owning a house (and having to work on said house) and full time work simply didn't give me enough time to shoot and write up #5.

However, all that means is you get two this week!

First up is an attempt to replicate the effect of soft, overhead lighting that is pretty popular in the glamour/portrait world. Unfortunately I don't yet have a stand and boom which would of course make this far easier, so instead I had to play around with what I have...

My hypothesis was pretty simple: two strobes, as high up on their stands as they can go pointing directly up into umbrella reflectors either side of the subject (me, just for something different!). This produced ok results, but for mine the lighting was a bit flat and lacked any real punch or drama.

The problem was that I had both lights slightly infront of me meaning there was plenty of overlap and spill stripping any shape from the image.

The remedy? Bring the lights more in-line with me to add more shape to the light and minimise the overlap. It didn't take much, the lights were only moved about 30cm toward me (away from the camera) and this created a better result.

Better, but still flat

Still, it wasn't where I wanted it to be and at this stage I was starting to realise that I would have a hard time of achieving what I had in my mind without a boom. Realising this, my priorities changed to now at least creating a shot with more character whilst sticking as closely as possible to the original idea.

It was pretty simple from here on, just keep moving those lights further and further back to bring more shape and direction into the shot until I eventually found a good compromise.

It was at this point that Nic happened to walk past (you'd think she would have learnt by now!) so I roped her in for a couple of shots, one of which is my pick of the bunch...

The pick of the bunch (romantic I know!) ISO 100, 1/200s, f/18 @75mm

The final details are pretty simple:

Both strobes were pointing directly up on half power and about 0.5m from us.

At the end of it all I did have some images that I was happy with, but they still didn't satisfy what I originally wanted. It'll be a while before I upgrade any of my lighting gear so I'm still going to be searching for a technique to replicate a softbox on a boom and just now one thought is to change the umbrellas to reflectors, really ramp up the output and bounce the light off the ceiling... Maybe next time?

Please feel free to leave feedback or to discuss, criticise, question anything I've covered in this or any other blog, subscribe to this blog to make sure you don't miss anything and be sure to visit and 'like' my facebook page and follow me on twitter.

Thanks for reading!!!

Will