|
Sunrise and Sunset
Have you thought of joining one of our photographic workshops? One of my favourite times of day to be out in the bush is an hour or so before dawn when it's very quite and very fresh. The so called “dawn chorus” has yet to begin, there is just the faintest lightening of the eastern horizon and it is (usually) all mine as there tend to be very few people about at this time. At sunset it's different. Hotter, more vibrant and superb light. Two great times to be out there photographing but like so much in photography there are a few little tricks that can help to make the photographs that one brings back a mite more pleasing. The first and most obvious things to be shooting at these times are the actual sunrises and sunsets. A word of warning here: Be very careful about looking into the sun, either with the naked eye or through the camera and very definitely if it has a telephoto lens attached to it. A long lens will magnify the sun and the blast of light into your eye will fry your retina, very probably causing permanent eye damage. The sun has to be very dull before one starts pointing long  lenses
at it and this usually only occurs just prior to it setting or only a
minute or two after it has risen and even then it may very well be too
bright. A very rough rule of thumb: If you can easily, and I emphasize
easily, look at the sun with the naked eye than you can probably put a
longish lens onto it. But be very cautious!A telephoto lens does wonders for sunsets (remember the warning) as it increases the size of the sun considerably but sunsets by themselves are rarely all that attractive. They invariably need something else – clouds, in interesting landscape to put into silhouette, trees or perhaps an animal. And remember that when photographing into the light like this everything other than the bright areas will be in silhouette. Because of this simple, graphic shapes work well. And you really need the whole of the subject matter to be sticking up above the horizon otherwise the bit that is not will simply disappear into the rest of the “black” areas. Getting the right exposure is always a bit tricky with sunsets and getting it really spot on really makes for a good pic. If you have to err, then underexpose a little if you are shooting slide film or overexpose a tad it it's negative file that you have in the camera. The problem is, if there is a lot of “silhouette” in the frame then the camera's light meter can easily try to expose this for detail and then you get really washed our colours in the sky. Alternatively, of you are including the sun in the frame, and particularly if it is close to the centre, it is very easy to underexpose the whole thing because it's so bright relatively to everything else in the frame All you'll get here is a big red ball and black. The best us to try to take a light reading a little to the side of the sun so that it is not in frame while excluding any subject matter that will eventually be silhouette. Then recompose and fire away. Work quickly in these conditions because the light levels change by the minute and you could do worse that to bracket (expose over and under you metered exposure) a stop or two either way It's all very well getting the sun setting into the horizon (or rising from it) but some of the most spectacular light and cloud formations actually occur some time after sunset and before sunrise. Wait! Don't be impatient. That bottle of Chateau de Plonk will still be there later and you can use it to celebrate the great pix you got by waiting a few minutes. The same goes for sunrises. If you have to get up at 4:30 am to get the sunrise you may as well get up at 4:00 or 4:15 and get the picture. Remember though that shutter speeds will be dropping quickly as it gets darker, and this is especially true if you are using a small aperture on your telephoto lens to get both the foreground and the sun in focus. A tripod here is a must if you are going to get sharp images and nothing wrecks an image like unwanted camera movement.  All of the above will in all probability get us glorious sunsets (or sunrises) with all the foreground stuff in silhouette. But why not try a little fill flash to put some detail into the foreground. It can be very effective, especially if your subject is moving. Because of the long shutter speeds the moving foreground (read subject) will blur and the very brief burst of light from your flashgun will “stop” movement at some point resulting in some very interesting images. The so-called second curtain sync (where the flash fires just as the shutter is about to close) works superbly in these situations. Don't limit yourself to just the sunrise or sunset. The light at this time is out of this world and ideal for photography so go crazy! And that big, glowing sky just after sunset or just before sunrise is like one great big soft box (an attachment that photographers use on their studio lights to soften the light) in the sky and great for portraiture. If there's something that you would like to read about in this column or questions you have , feel free to contact me on e-mail at info@africaimagery.com . I will try to get back to you but things sometimes get a little hectic around here so please forgive me if I don't. It will, though, help to give me an idea of what you want to know |
Email us for information on commercial and personal use of images