Sunset photgraphy

[kuzcomerlin]

Hi everybody,
I am pretty new in digital photography. Until now I was using simple compact digital cameras.
Since a few month I am the proud owner of a Canon EOS 1100D camera and I am still learning about this really great camera.
As from my bedroom balcony I can see the most spectacular sunsets right now (clouds in all kind of colors) I would like to shoot them with my camera.
My question is now how I can set the camera to take those great pictures I see everywhere in the net, without using Photoshop to be beautiful looking pictures?
Thanks already for your recommendations. 😄

kuzcomerlin from Crete

[Jinuyr]

Hello kuzcomerlin,

I too am relatively new to digital photography and have been working on taking similar shots.  I have noticed better success at taking sunset photos when using AEB if I'm looking to skip post processing.  This will give you a broader range of useable pictures when trying to take a sunset which is also time sensitive.  You may also be able to do some additional on camera editing as a JPEG if you don't expect to use RAW for your finished product though I would still recommend reconsidering that since an application such as Lightroom 4 is fairly easy to use an inexpensive.

Hope this helps.  I will share my experiences as I get more opportunities for sunset photography.

Cheers,

Jinuyr

[7D5D]

Composition and exposure are two basic techniques to begin with. Of course time of day is key. As Jiuyr stated bracket your shots to obtain different exposures of your scene. You will notice how under exposing will saturate the colors. Look for interesting angles and objects to insert into the foreground (silhouette of trees, etc.). Time, practice, experiment, and study other's photos.

By all means if you plan to develop photography into a real hobby shoot RAW instead of JPG and invest in software like Adobe Lightroom.

[ebiggs1]

Sunsets are difficult to capture on any camera. The only really effective way I know of is Photo Shop.

The f-stop latitude is so wide that even multiple exposures will not capture the moment unless you can post process them in PS. Plus the exposure is quickly changing as the Sun go down. The color varies rapidly also.

 

The camera you have is well equipped and quite capable of capturing sunsets but I recommend some post processing to get really nice results. Photo Shop is the best there is but PS Elements, which is very reasonable in cost, can do a really fine job, too.

I used my 5D Mk II and 70-200mm lens for these shots.