The Night Encroaches

[selig1656]

#1
P7125199 affinity edit by Raymond Friedman, on Flickr
#2
RSF_4646 edited by Raymond Friedman, on Flickr
#3
RSF_3212 edited by Raymond Friedman, on Flickr

[Manfred M]

Raymond - the one issue shared by all these images is that there is little to them other than the funky colours that happen near sunset. Take that away and you don't have a shot at all.

In my experience, a well composed image with an interesting subject is required in a sunset shot.

[Shadowman]

Nice efforts.

[xpatUSA]

I like the colors, albeit mostly false in the first shot, BUT:

In that first shot, the scene dynamic range greatly exceeds the camera's capability, even for an Olympus. Therefore, the camera settings were inappropriate for such a scene, especially the choice of "matrix" metering or whatever Olympus calls it. Namely, the large area of darkness fooled the 'evaluative' metering causing the sunlit clouds to be way over-exposed at the sensor. Furthermore, in the EXIF data, the 'Exposure' tag says "Creative Program (based towards Depth of Field)".

With a scene like that, letting the camera do anything automatically or creatively, fancy or not, is a recipe for failure and old geezers like myself would only shoot that scene in Full Manual Everything ... and would take 7 or so shots at various shutter speeds in order to merge or to pick the best in post. Hint: real twilight skies are never yellow.

For that very scene, a Graduated Neutral Density filter on the lens might have helped; I never use them but serious photographers do, I've read.

Shots 2 and 3 have insufficient EXIF data, so no comment about those, exposure-wise.

[DanK]

I don't think a graduated ND would work because there isn't a straight horizon.

IMHO, the third has the most potential because it has some interesting lines and contrasts. The first won't work because it's shot through a mess of wires.

Re metering: I agree, fully automatic anything isn't likely to work in these cases. I don't think full manual is necessary (although I would use it). What's necessary is taking control of the metering: deciding how you want different parts of the image exposed, and then choosing a metering method that gets you there. The camera can't do that. It simply applies a predetermined algorithm that someone else figured applies well to a lot of images. It will work fine if your image is like the type they had in mind when writing the algorithm.

[Manfred M]

I don't think a graduated ND would work because there isn't a straight horizon.

A reverse grad is used for shots where the sun is on the horizon, i.e.the heaviest filtration is on the horizon and it lightens up the higher one gets from the horizon. The area below the centre is clear, just like with standards grads. I don't have one and in fact have generally not used grads in sunsets. Most of mine are rectangular filters that do not have an anti-reflection coating and shooting directly into the sun would give loads of reflections and veiling flare.

Regardless, I find that any shots that are into the sun, regardless of the time of day are high dynamic range shots and multiple, different exposures are required to assemble an acceptable image, where one uses an HDRI technique using Lightroom or Photoshop or some form of exposure blending (my preferred approach).

[selig1656]

The first is least to my liking and I agree with your assessment .Thank youTed

[selig1656]

Manfred, I have heard this a lot, I do somewhat disagree on the composition aspect. The first was am attempt to play with it and is a bad capture .The other part on editing is well taken my friend and always need to hear in order to improve my perspective.

[Manfred M]

Manfred, I have heard this a lot, I do somewhat disagree on the composition aspect.

Just Google "sunset images" and you will find thousands of images that show funky skies. The ones that catch my eye are the ones that have the sunset as an element, but the photographer has a more interesting and complete composition, one that would be interesting / compelling even without the sunset.

[xpatUSA]

The ones that catch my eye are the ones that have the sunset as an element, but the photographer has a more interesting and complete composition, one that would be interesting / compelling even without the sunset.

Manfred, does "having the sunset as a element" mean that the sun itself is in the image albeit behind clouds?

For example, is the sunset an element in this one:

[Manfred M]

Manfred, does "having the sunset as a element" mean that the sun itself is in the image albeit behind clouds?

For example, is the sunset an element in this one:

I suspect that technically a sunset shot should include the sun or at least noticeable artifacts of the sun, for instance the effects of the sun being behind a cloud. If it doesn't the time before the sun dips below the horizon is technically just a Golden Hour shot. Afterwards, we are looking at a blue hour shot.

[Wavelength]

I like them for their colours; #2 is the best of the three...

[DanK]

I don't think terminology is the important issue for the OP. I think the issue is composition.

Take image #2. The question I would ask is: would you mind if the trees hadn't been there? Were they in the image because you wanted them there, or because they happened to be in the way?

In a strong image, prominent elements have to serve a purpose, and irrelevant or distracting elements have to be avoided or minimized. I find this hard to to in the case of landscapes, which is one reason I do so few of them.

An image of a sunset is no different, IMHO. The colors are very striking, and there is nothing wrong with a photo of striking colors, but a strong image requires more than that.

Just my two cents.

[Manfred M]

I don't think terminology is the important issue for the OP. I think the issue is composition.

Take image #2. The question I would ask is: would you mind if the trees hadn't been there? Were they in the image because you wanted them there, or because they happened to be in the way?

In a strong image, prominent elements have to serve a purpose, and irrelevant or distracting elements have to be avoided or minimized. I find this hard to to in the case of landscapes, which is one reason I do so few of them.

An image of a sunset is no different, IMHO. The colors are very striking, and there is nothing wrong with a photo of striking colors, but a strong image requires more than that.

Just my two cents.

Very well explained Dan.