Sunset Tryout: What am I doing wrong?

cmorganphotography

I tried it three ways, I tried it on manual on all sorts of ISO and Fstops, all of them were dark, put it on Aperture priority and god blue ones. Put the camera on auto the lens on M and got ok colour. I had to punch up the sky colours in post... what am I doing wrong I can't get the candy colours of the sunset sky out of the camera?? Here's some examples of what I got:
1

2

3

4


C + C is being begged of you! Help!:bow

jziegler

They look pretty good to me. Without going HDR, I don't know if there's much more to be done.

aktse

You need to use some grad-ND filters during the shoot or combine various exposures (bracketing might help) since the foreground and background are two different exposures or just use various layers masks in PS when shooting in RAW. In general, they look pretty good, but in the end, it all depends on what you're looking for in a photo. Good luck.

cmorganphotography

jziegler wrote:

They look pretty good to me. Without going HDR, I don't know if there's much more to be done.

Thank you, that's very kind but these are after some post production work. What ISO and fstop should be used at sunset times?? I tried a bunch but just never got it. The last one was entirely my on Manual, the third is from A Priority, and the first two are Auto set/Manual focus [with flash].

Any tricks, sage advice? I want to get so good I don't have to touch them with PP [ I'm sure it'll never happen but it good to have goals!]

Moogle Pepper

I think part of it is timing as well as pp. But I am not so sure about the PP. Sorry! The last one looks like you are getting there!

cmorganphotography

Moogle Pepper wrote:

I think part of it is timing as well as pp. But I am not so sure about the PP. Sorry! The last one looks like you are getting there!

Dang. That was the first one of the night. I got worse. mmmmman...:bluduh

Awais Yaqub

Looks good to me, I shoot at lowest ISO possible. As spot metering is absent in my camera i just activate Partial metering maximize the zoom and meter the are i want, then lock the exposure and back to wide end and shoot. I meter where light intensity is neautral.

What type of affect you want to acheive ? link to any samples? so expert can help you

ian408

aktse wrote:

You need to use some grad-ND filters during the shoot or combine various exposures (bracketing might help) since the foreground and background are two different exposures or just use various layers masks in PS when shooting in RAW. In general, they look pretty good, but in the end, it all depends on what you're looking for in a photo. Good luck.

Graduated Neutral Density filters are a good way to go. But keep in mind that the difference in exposure from the foreground to the background is quite large. You might also benefit by using a quick mask (in PS) and making separate adjustments for both foreground and background.

anwmn1

cmorganphotography wrote:

I tried it three ways, I tried it on manual on all sorts of ISO and Fstops, all of them were dark, put it on Aperture priority and god blue ones. Put the camera on auto the lens on M and got ok colour. I had to punch up the sky colours in post... what am I doing wrong I can't get the candy colours of the sunset sky out of the camera??

C + C is being begged of you! Help!

I find this post quite funny considering the posts you have posted in the people area. I didn't take you as someone that would seek advice.

First of all I do not beleive in tricks or fabricating a sunset that was never there so my advice is a little bias towards getting what is actually there. If the candy is not in the sky it aint going to be in your camera either.

1. Your last shot is your best shot. Crop it to the bottom of your name and that wil give you the best picture from your attempts.

2. Turn off the stupid flash!!

3. Shoot Manual low ISO (100)- F-stop between 8-11 is most common (I'll do 15-22 on occasion)- might have to manual focus/ might not - expose for the sky- and then just adjust the shutter to get the look you like.

Richard

cmorganphotography wrote:

I want to get so good I don't have to touch them with PP

The only way you can even come close is with a graduated ND filter. But I think you make a mistake in thinking that there's some virtue in not needing PP. The final image is what matters, not how you get there. Multiple exposures are really helpful in capturing the subtleties of sunset scenes.

jziegler

cmorganphotography wrote:

Thank you, that's very kind but these are after some post production work. What ISO and fstop should be used at sunset times?? I tried a bunch but just never got it. The last one was entirely my on Manual, the third is from A Priority, and the first two are Auto set/Manual focus [with flash].

Any tricks, sage advice? I want to get so good I don't have to touch them with PP [ I'm sure it'll never happen but it good to have goals!]

Sorry, I can't give much advice here. I've only done a few sunset shots myself, and still have much to learn on them.

For shots like this, never touching with PP is not likely to happen. It's just the nature of the shots.

cmorganphotography

Awais Yaqub wrote:

Looks good to me, I shoot at lowest ISO possible. As spot metering is absent in my camera i just activate Partial metering maximize the zoom and meter the are i want, then lock the exposure and back to wide end and shoot. I meter where light intensity is neautral.

What type of affect you want to acheive ? link to any samples? so expert can help you

I'm not sure how I can post an example without knowing if it was PP'd or not. I want to capture the image as it with little pp. I'll look into the partial metering. Low ISO is best way to go, says Awais and that's good enough for me!

cmorganphotography

aktse wrote:

You need to use some grad-ND filters during the shoot or combine various exposures (bracketing might help) since the foreground and background are two different exposures or just use various layers masks in PS when shooting in RAW. In general, they look pretty good, but in the end, it all depends on what you're looking for in a photo. Good luck.

Thanks for the luck, I'll look into the filters, I don't have a UV on the camera either.... so filter research is to be had! When I get PS or something like it I think PP will be easier. Thanks for the comment.:D

cmorganphotography

anwmn1 wrote:

I find this post quite funny considering the posts you have posted in the people area. I didn't take you as someone that would seek advice.
Shoot Manual low ISO (100)- F-stop between 8-11 is most common (I'll do 15-22 on occasion)- might have to manual focus/ might not - expose for the sky- and then just adjust the shutter to get the look you like.

I'll keep those numbers in mind, low ISo as possible, and f 8-11. Seems a common aperture for outside. If it works I'll use it.:D
Why wouldn't I seek advice?
I shoot lots of things, I'm not much of a specialist but when it comes to people I've been drawing them for 20 years... so more or less I'm critical of face angles and how light catches them and go from there.
Or you're calling me cocky!

cmorganphotography

Richard wrote:

The only way you can even come close is with a graduated ND filter. But I think you make a mistake in thinking that there's some virtue in not needing PP. The final image is what matters, not how you get there. Multiple exposures are really helpful in capturing the subtleties of sunset scenes.

I want to capture what's there. My eyes see something entirely different than what my camera catches. To me the images look washed out even though the clouds were bright red and orange, the sunset went from bright pink to medium blue with a streak of yellow in between. All I got were pastels and I had to bump up sat and tone it yellow to get these to look this way.
The ones that got the closest pic were on auto. I don't know how the camera did. And it won't tell me!!

dlplumer

If you are using iPhoto for PP, I would suggest that is your problem. I suggested to you a while back that you spring for Aperture which would allow you to adjust each individual color plus a whole lot more

Pezpix

Well, my two cents worth of advice is similar to others... ND filters, ND filters & more ND filters.

You'll find that controlling the light in a scene like that is always difficult because your background light is sometimes 3-6 stops lighter than the foreground that you are trying to show. When I am in a problematic situation similar to that, I find myself reaching for a .6 or .9 hard grad ND filter if my lines are fairly straight, otherwise I'd go with a soft grad ND filter to hold back some of that sky while keeping your details in your foreground.

Of course, YMMV, but I've been using Lee resin system filters for a few years, but I know there are quite a few good 100x150 ones out there as well.

Here's an example of the grad ND filters I use btw. These shots had very bright backgrounds and the foreground was very very dark but a good ND filter tied both parts of the scene together well.

dlplumer

Pezpix wrote:

Well, my two cents worth of advice is similar to others... ND filters, ND filters & more ND filters.

You'll find that controlling the light in a scene like that is always difficult because your background light is sometimes 3-6 stops lighter than the foreground that you are trying to show. When I am in a problematic situation similar to that, I find myself reaching for a .6 or .9 hard grad ND filter if my lines are fairly straight, otherwise I'd go with a soft grad ND filter to hold back some of that sky while keeping your details in your foreground.

Of course, YMMV, but I've been using Lee resin system filters for a few years, but I know there are quite a few good 100x150 ones out there as well.

Here's an example of the grad ND filters I use btw. These shots had very bright backgrounds and the foreground was very very dark but a good ND filter tied both parts of the scene together well.

Very great shots. I think I will buy a filter

Scott_Quier

cmorganphotography wrote:

Any tricks, sage advice? I want to get so good I don't have to touch them with PP [ I'm sure it'll never happen but it good to have goals!]

It is virtually impossible to get deep, rich, saturated colors SOOC - the cameras are, by default, built to NOT do this. You can play with the Picture Styles a bit if you like, but that's just letting the camera do you PP for you.

In terms of the shot you posted, you can get what you want two different ways, (1) you can use a GND filter or (2) you can take two (or more shots) at different exposure settings and combine them in something like Photoshop.

dlplumer

Minimal PP on a jpeg

Nikolai

Scott_Quier wrote:

It is virtually impossible to get deep, rich, saturated colors SOOC - the cameras are, by default, built to NOT do this. You can play with the Picture Styles a bit if you like, but that's just letting the camera do you PP for you.

In terms of the shot you posted, you can get what you want two different ways, (1) you can use a GND filter or (2) you can take two (or more shots) at different exposure settings and combine them in something like Photoshop.

And for me it's *way* simpler/faster/cheaper/easier to snap a few RAWs and then blend them later in PS than mess with GND

cmorganphotography

dlplumer wrote:

Very great shots. I think I will buy a filter

ME TOO!

cmorganphotography

In a post to all, thanks for the suggestion long ago for PS and aperture, I know I need some better software, maybe if the art show goes well... Me buy things!:D

The filters seem to do the initial trick I was looking for so thanks to all of you on that one, good trick. Secondly, I learned my camera [or any] won't be able to do the work of god in a sensor. Good to know, thanks on the info for that one.

And in conclusion, the presidents ran the country and the mice ran away with the spoon. This feels like a speech.

All very good, very helpful information and I am super grateful. Once I track down some money and then hunt for some filters and PP softwares I'll come back with some nice cool shots to knock your socks off.

Thanks!!!!

cmorganphotography

dlplumer wrote:

Minimal PP on a jpeg

Damn. You fixed the jpeg. I do shoot in RAW but iphoto doesn't like them. It makes them jpeg. Silly iphoto.

That looks awesome!

cmason

Don't forget, even in film days, more than half of the creation of an image was in the darkroom. Now many people never had the pleasure of working a darkroom, but there were tons of tricks manipulating enlarger exposure time, soak times, burn/dodge, and other tricks (multiple and stacked exposures seems to ring a distant bell).

MOST photographers did not get their final image straight out of the camera. No reason to expect to get it that way now...especially since our darkrooms are alot less messy...and dark.

dlplumer

cmorganphotography wrote:

Damn. You fixed the jpeg. I do shoot in RAW but iphoto doesn't like them. It makes them jpeg. Silly iphoto.

That looks awesome!

This took 10 sec. in Aperture. If I had the raw image and 2 minutes, we could make it GREAT.

cmorganphotography

cmason wrote:

MOST photographers did not get their final image straight out of the camera. No reason to expect to get it that way now...especially since our darkrooms are alot less messy...and dark.

I've worked in a darkroom. I much prefer the computer darkrooms. If you screw up you aren't out paper, fluid, time, and have to start over again from scratch. Just hit Ctrl + Z.

ban25

Shoot in manual, somewhere around f/8 and adjust the exposure to taste. An ND grad may be very useful, but sometimes you'll find the gradient is in the wrong place.

Timing, location, and luck are the most important points to keep in mind. Make a note of what time the sunset is for that day and be ready to shoot before and after.

Weather can also be a big help. There are some clouds in your shots, but often times the best sunsets are after poor/overcast weather.

Here's a couple I took last weekend:





And from a few months ago:



No post-processing or filters for any of these.

cmorganphotography

I think I received plenty of advice, which is good and often, and some knowledge in my noggin from it. I like that last one, the clouds so low make it surreal! Nice one!

Rhuarc

I've been working at editing some sunset shots that I took last weekend and am running into this as well. I read somewhere (don't remember where) that we have to do the post processing in the computer that our brains do automatically. So the camera is like our eye, all it does is capture what is there. Our brains then take that and make neutrals look neutral, whites look white, add saturation or contrast based on the environment, etc... Because our cameras don't do this editing if we look at SOOC they look washed out and lifeless. The post processing does for the image what our brain does for our eyes.

Or so I have heard!

Karrie McD

Wow!
What a useful thread! I am going to be spending a week in paradise soon and plan on having a weeks worth of sunset and sunrise photos...This thread came just in time.