How To Snap The Sunsets

Learn the following tricks to know how to take cool shots of the sunset
Setting Up Your Camera
Everyone love sunsets right and for one to capture the rich colours, dramatic lighting and strong shapes, there is just a little effort required from you.

1. First attempts

Conditions change rapidly, so it's good to get a few shots done quickly first.

2. Change focal length

Get better shot by moving further away and using a longer focal length.

3. Play with White Balance

If you leave White Balance set to Auto, your camera might attempt to correct what it sees as a colour cast, producing weak or distorted tones. To capture the hues as they really are, use the Direct Sunlight White Balance pre-set.
Making the colours in your landscapes warmer can be a simple matter of changing the white balance on your camera from Daylight to Cloudy or Shade. The best way to do this is to shoot in raw, set the white balance to suit the sunset or sunrise colours, and then adjust the shadows at the editing stage.

4. Use Picture Controls / Picture Styles

Look at your camera's Picture Styles. The Standard settin reproduces colours accurately but switching to Vivid will boost saturation and give extra intensity. Better still, shoot raw files rather than JPEGs. This will give you more scope for changing the White Balance and colour saturation later in post processing.

5. Hide the sun




Exposure can be a problem with sunsets, so make sure you check your images on the LCD as soon as you've taken them. If the sun is still quite high in the sky it might be too intense in the shot, so try hiding it behind another object, such as a lighthouse. You still get those rich sunset colours, but without the glare.

6. Shoot the sun.




If you want to include the sun in the frame, you'll have to wait until it's much nearer the horizon, when it will be less intense. You'll still need to keep a close eye on the exposure

7. Metering modes

Try using centre-weighted metering. This is less sophisticated than your camera's multi-zone metering mode, and more easily influenced by very bright areas, but that's exactly what we want for sunset photography. It's the colour in the sky that's important, and objects in the foreground should just be silhouettes. Try spot metering to take a reading from an area of sky.

8. Sunset calculators
The main secret with sunsets, of course, is to be in the right place at the right time. If you have a smartphone you can use a 'sunset calculator', which will tell you what time the sun will go down, and at what angle, for any date and location. LightTrac - £2.99 ($4.99) for iOS and £3.01 ($4.99) for Android - is a good option. You'll still need to arrive well in advance, though, to give yourself time to prepare.