How To Capture A Great Sunset

[Lauren]

Whenever I take a picture on my camera, even on the 'sunset' setting it never comes out how it looks in real life. The sunset always looks much paler and less red. It also never captures the contrast between the dark red sun and the blue sky properly.

Any tips?

[Spawney]

Have a try at HDR / tone mapping. Done correctly the results can be spectacular but if over done the results can be a bit nauseating.

[Lauren]

Have a try at HDR / tone mapping. Done correctly the results can be spectacular but if over done the results can be a bit nauseating.

What does that mean? :blush:

[Spawney]

Basically you take a series of photos of the scene at different exposure levels and then use software like Paintshop pro etc. to blend the different images together into one image.

Here's a beginners tutorial video

Edited December 23, 2011 by Spawney

[4wd]

I wouldn't recommend HDR for sunsets although it has it's place in landscapes.

The main thing will be to avoid over-exposing the shot.

Set on auto or semi-auto modes like 'P' the camera will think the scene a bit dark most likely and adjust according to make the nice bright shot it thinks you want.

Sunset mode if present should be aware of this although you'll still need to look at the results in preview as no two sunsets will require the same approach.

The best thing will be to take a number of shots using different exposure settings.

If you can, use full manual mode or there may be a way to compensate up or down intended to deal with backlighting for example.

You can force the camera to change exposure automatically by including more sky or ground when composing, part holding down the shutter then recomposing with the changed setting.

In a typical good sunset picture most foreground objects will be practically silhouettes and it's well worth deliberately going for this effect as it will make your shot far more interesting and give a sense of scale.

[Lauren]

Basically you take a series of photos of the scene at different exposure levels and then use software like Paintshop pro etc. to blend the different images together into one image.

Here's a beginners tutorial video

Ok, unfortunately I don't have that software.

[pottyprof]

Lauren. If you search for "free HDR software" there are a few free pieces of software to play with. I've used a few of them to create some decent HDR photo's. Worth trying a few of them out.

[Lauren]

Will do. ta.

Are they easy to work as i am quite the technology dunce?

[pottyprof]

The instructions are fairly clear for most of them. Just have a play and experiment if you don't fancy tackling the manual. Just one more tip though, only work on a copy of the original.