I've seen some awesome sunset shots around here. While I haven't captured anything truly magical, I can produce consistant results so I'll try to help a bit and let someone w/ more knowledge do the heavy lifting..
Ok, i know that when shooting a sunrise and you want to include the sun in your image whatyou do is meter the sky without the sun. "They" tell you to take the reading either up or down or to the side of the sun ( without the sun in the image ). What I am finding is ( im using a 17-55 ) to exclude the sun from my meter means im shooting in an area of the sky that is so much different from where the sun is.
That doesnt seem right to me....So what Am i doing wrong?
I expose w/ the sun just barely out of my frame. This makes my meter think the sky is brighter than it is, thus darkening my sky to create more contrast.
2nd) I find that even on my good lens the AF sometimes gets lost in the mist / light rays and has some difficulty locking in... I know what to do if that happens but is that normal?
AF technology needs something tangible to lock onto. It can't 'see' air so it doesn't want to focus lock. Your best bet is to MF out to infinity then back up a nudge.
3rd) I know how to make those rays of light around the sun appear but I dont want to use them if its not " the thing to do". I tend to use f/16 & f/22 a lot and I get these nice rays. But the more I look at other images - they tend to keep the sun as it is unless they have it peaking through a tree or against something... Is that the "thing". So what Im asking is... is it preferable to leave the sun more as it is or go for the "dramatic" looking sun?
The "thing" is what you want it to be. THis is purely an artistic preference. Be the artist and make the shot you want!
4) lens flare - sometimes with the sun in the image ( no filters on ) no matter what I do - its unavoidable. Is this the case or can it always be prevented?
There is lens flare in almost every shot a photographer makes, it is almost completely un-noticeable in most cases. In regards to the lens flare your talking about, I'm lucky and don't haveproblems w/ that on sunsets. I'm eager to hear what others have to say about this.
I agree with Slo on metering just off the sun. If you are having problems with the sun creeping into the frame, switch over to spot metering. It can be effective for metering while negating the overly bright sun to the edge of the frame.
Unless there is a foreground object that you want to accentuate, switch off the autofocus, set to infinity, and then use your eye to adjust. Here are two images... the first I keyed on the pier as my primary focus and the second on the girl. Both were shot at f/20 so the large depth of field made up for the horizon distance to a certain degree.
Lastly, bracket everything by at least a stop either way. Good luck!
I shoot in manual mode, guess at the exposure, take a shot, chimp and adjust. Midday sun should be shot at Sunny 16 -1 or -2, i.e. ISO 100, f/16, 1/200-1/400s. As the sun sets it gets darker as it is obscured by more air, mist, smoke or clouds. If your camera has a spot meter, it can help quite a bit. Look at the sky and find the brightest place you want to preserve color and spot meter on it. If the color is red you can't push the exposure much without losing color. If it is orange, you can push by maybe a stop. If it is yellow you can push up to two stops and still preserve some color.
On focusing:
Often when I am shooting sunsets I want enough DoF to keep the foreground in focus so I normally use the hyperfocal point rather than focusing on the sky. I shoot most of my landscape work at f/11 so I have taken the time to find test my favorite landscape lenses (the 15mm fish, the 17-40/4L and the 24-105/4L) to find the closest point on the focus ring which is sharp at infinity when stopped down to f/11 and that is how I focus.
On stars and flare:
The flare pattern on each lens is different and one of tne of the benefits you get from upgrading to better glass is better control of flare. Even with good glass each model of lens has its own characteristics. My fisheye creates moderately large 10 pointed stars (becasue it has 5 aperture blades) but otherwise is pretty clean. The 17-40 is remarkably flare resistant and really have to work to get any kind of flare from that lens. The 24-105 has some flare problems with the sun is outside the frame so I always use the hood on that lens. Without changing lenses, the only things you can really do about flare is make sure you keep the lens clean and be careful about what filters you use with it.
lots of good info above!!! and thanx to everyone so far.....
on my way to work i have a scene i can practice daily on...
this is one from today:
im not worrying about composition right now - just technique, and how best to "develop" RAW
troy
Troy, you did a pretty good job at capturing a very difficult image. In this case, the sun was not diffused by cloud cover or excessive ozone so capturing the scene without blowing out the sun is practical impossibility unless, you employ multiple exposures - for the highlights, the midrange, and the shadows and then merge them together in HDR. Camera sensors, nor film for the matter, do not have enough dynamic range to capture the extremes contained in the this image.
Now if I was going to keep this image I would crop the bottom 2/3 of the way up to so that the dark area took up only the bottom 1/3 of the image and do the same for the top down. Pretty image.
Comments
AF technology needs something tangible to lock onto. It can't 'see' air so it doesn't want to focus lock. Your best bet is to MF out to infinity then back up a nudge.
The "thing" is what you want it to be. THis is purely an artistic preference. Be the artist and make the shot you want!
There is lens flare in almost every shot a photographer makes, it is almost completely un-noticeable in most cases. In regards to the lens flare your talking about, I'm lucky and don't haveproblems w/ that on sunsets. I'm eager to hear what others have to say about this.
-Jon
Not sure if this will help, but here are two examples of sunrises I shot with the info:
Nikon D70 with 210mm (315 in 35mm), f/9 at 1/200.
Nikon D70 with 70mm (105 35mm), f/6.3 at 1/100. But here the ISO was a mistake at 640.
And as you said, the sun is cutting through stuff. As I remember, these were done manual, but metered off the sky with EV adjustments.
I also haven't had flare problems shooting sunrise / sets
Website
Win,
I agree with Slo on metering just off the sun. If you are having problems with the sun creeping into the frame, switch over to spot metering. It can be effective for metering while negating the overly bright sun to the edge of the frame.
Unless there is a foreground object that you want to accentuate, switch off the autofocus, set to infinity, and then use your eye to adjust. Here are two images... the first I keyed on the pier as my primary focus and the second on the girl. Both were shot at f/20 so the large depth of field made up for the horizon distance to a certain degree.
Lastly, bracket everything by at least a stop either way. Good luck!
My Images | My Lessons Learned and Other Adventures
on my way to work i have a scene i can practice daily on...
this is one from today:
im not worrying about composition right now - just technique, and how best to "develop" RAW
troy
I shoot in manual mode, guess at the exposure, take a shot, chimp and adjust. Midday sun should be shot at Sunny 16 -1 or -2, i.e. ISO 100, f/16, 1/200-1/400s. As the sun sets it gets darker as it is obscured by more air, mist, smoke or clouds. If your camera has a spot meter, it can help quite a bit. Look at the sky and find the brightest place you want to preserve color and spot meter on it. If the color is red you can't push the exposure much without losing color. If it is orange, you can push by maybe a stop. If it is yellow you can push up to two stops and still preserve some color.
On focusing:
Often when I am shooting sunsets I want enough DoF to keep the foreground in focus so I normally use the hyperfocal point rather than focusing on the sky. I shoot most of my landscape work at f/11 so I have taken the time to find test my favorite landscape lenses (the 15mm fish, the 17-40/4L and the 24-105/4L) to find the closest point on the focus ring which is sharp at infinity when stopped down to f/11 and that is how I focus.
On stars and flare:
The flare pattern on each lens is different and one of tne of the benefits you get from upgrading to better glass is better control of flare. Even with good glass each model of lens has its own characteristics. My fisheye creates moderately large 10 pointed stars (becasue it has 5 aperture blades) but otherwise is pretty clean. The 17-40 is remarkably flare resistant and really have to work to get any kind of flare from that lens. The 24-105 has some flare problems with the sun is outside the frame so I always use the hood on that lens. Without changing lenses, the only things you can really do about flare is make sure you keep the lens clean and be careful about what filters you use with it.
Troy, you did a pretty good job at capturing a very difficult image. In this case, the sun was not diffused by cloud cover or excessive ozone so capturing the scene without blowing out the sun is practical impossibility unless, you employ multiple exposures - for the highlights, the midrange, and the shadows and then merge them together in HDR. Camera sensors, nor film for the matter, do not have enough dynamic range to capture the extremes contained in the this image.
Now if I was going to keep this image I would crop the bottom 2/3 of the way up to so that the dark area took up only the bottom 1/3 of the image and do the same for the top down. Pretty image.
My Images | My Lessons Learned and Other Adventures