Sunrise/sunset help

[allenlennon]

Question. What are the vest settings on the camera for sunrise and sunset? Any photography? Any help/advice would be greatly appreiciated.

[gsrunyan]

Shoot the skies just before sunrise and just after sundown. The image is in the beautiful colors of the sky and not the sun.

Meter for the whole image, not spot or center weighted.

Glenn

[allenlennon]

Yeah but what settings dO I need on the camera

[FrankMi]

Hi Allen, the light changes so dramatically during sunrise/sunset and is usually high contrast so I've found that I want to be on a tripod and take bracketed exposures, usually -2EV, Normal, and +2EV. In some cases where it is particularly contrasty, I shoot +/-3EV or more. When you process you may like the ones with the properly exposed sky and shiloetted foreground or a well exposed foreground and a washed-out sky. Then again, having multiple exposures gives you the option for using High Dynamic Range and getting both the sky and foreground properly exposed. Shoot in RAW if you can to capture the wider contrast. I generally let the camera's meter average the exposure for the normal shot as a starting point. Don't be surprised if the histogram looks more like the letter "H" than a bell curve.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Allen,

Don't use Auto WB, set it manually on say cloudy.
(If anyone wants to suggest an alternative to cloudy, feel free)

Get there early and set up the composition while there's still plenty of light (talking sunsets here of course!)

Anyone else care to contribute?

[knifebox]

don't forget to take off the lens cap

[keith201]

You will probably find 'The Photographers Ephemeris useful. It's a freedownload to a PC and is available as an I Phone app for a small cost. The URL is www.stephentrainor.com/tools