I love sunsets! There is just something so stirring about the end of the day. It is almost magical for me. Of course I also love sunrises. I just don’t love getting up in time for the sunrise.
So, how do you capture a sunset? First find a good place where you can see the sunset. Then find out when the sunset is going to happen (https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/) and get there early enough . I usually try and arrive 30-60 minutes early as sometimes you need time to find the best spot – also some nice pictures can be had before the sun hits it’s peak. Also plan on sticking around 30-60 minutes after sunset – the blue hour – because the light is just amazing.
Gear – well anything will work but you do need a solid tripod or some sort of support. Why? well the light is dropping and you will need a longer exposure time if you are going to keep the ISO noise down in you pictures.
So last night I decided that the sunset would be perfect with the nice clouds and all so keeping with my advice above I jumped in the car 45 minutes before sunset and raced to High Cliff State Park – which is 30 minutes away! Don’t worry, I followed all posted speed limits, kind of, at least when I was stuck behind slow poke Jones!
I went up the cliff to my favorite spot – and the lake flies were enough to block the sun out! So I raced to the lake shore where there was enough wind to keep them at bay! I set up my tripod, grabbed my trusty Canon 5d mkIII and Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 lens. Set the ISO to 100 in manual mode, set the aperture to 7.1 which I knew was a good depth of field but still very sharp. I used the camera’s meter to set the shutter speed for 1/125 seconds. I set the shutter button to 2 second delay – to make sure the camera stopped vibrating after I pushed the button. I pushed the button and 2 seconds later I captured the picture above!
350 shots later with a variety of lenses and exposures and I was done. And my first shot (above) was probably the best of the night!
Below are a few more shots – see if you can figure out the focal lengths and exposure times…
