Tips >

Sunrises & Sunsets

Do the following for better sunrise and sunset photographs.

Don't stare at the sun.

Use a low ISO, such as 100.

There'll be less noise.

If you use automatic white balance, your camera may remove what it deems are excessive reds and oranges.

That's not what you want.

Set you white balance to the cloud icon or shade icon.

If you're saving your photographs as raw files, you can set the white balance when you process the photographs.

Use exposure compensation to change how the sunset looks.

Experiment!

Without intervention, foregrounds are likely to appear as silhouettes.

So, look for something near the camera that will look good as a silhouette, such as a palm tree.

If you want the foreground to be more visible, you have to do some extra work.

If you're photographing someone near the camera, pop your flash up.

If you don't, the person will appear as a silhouette.

You can reduce the contrast in a scene by taking several different exposures, and then using software to combine the files into a single photograph.

You can process the raw file twice:

1) Develop for the bright areas

2) Develop a second time for the darker areas

3) Then, combine the two images with Photoshop Elements or other software.

There are three advantages.

Raw files have far more information available for editing in the shadows than do JPEG files.

As mentioned, you can set the white balance when you process the raw file.

As mentioned, you can process the raw file twice.

Use telephoto focal lengths for a larger sun disc.