​10 tricks to make your Sunsets and sunrises work stunning and engaging

A beautiful sunrise or sunset is one of nature's most enchanting images, canvas prints and one of the rarest is that if the weather is fine, we see it every day! Millions of photography lovers love to shoot at this moment,

A photographer may even take days or years to capture the perfect sunset or sunrise. To make amazing sunrise and sunset shots, canvas prints online it is important to have enough skill and preparation as well as constant practice. Here are 10 tips for capturing a beautiful sunrise or sunset to help you get the perfect shot.

Tip # 1: Find your location

Whether you intend to shoot the sunrise or sunset, it is important to finding the position and the optimum location in advance in order to save time, because for shoot sunrise and sunset, time is very precious, so photography enthusiasts often call this time "prime time", if the time is spent in looking for the location, thus missed the best shooting time, large canvas prints would be a regrettable thing.

Needless to say, you need to consider where the sun actually rises and sets on the horizon, as well as how other objects in the image might be illuminated or cast in shadows as the sun moves, disturbing the image. So take note of the location you choose in advance and make sure you have enough time to get there before shooting starts. If you're shooting sunrises, you'll need to get up early and find your location in the dark, and if you're shooting sunsets, you may need to compete with other photographers for the best Angle!

Tip 2: Locate your interest points

Many photography enthusiasts usually place the horizon line in the center of the frame. I wouldn't say it's necessarily wrong, but it's certainly not the best thing to do. As you shoot, think about your scene and find the most dynamic, interesting and engaging elements.

If the sky has colorful clouds and beautiful colors, you should place the horizon in the lower part of the picture to make more room for the magnificent view above. In addition, if the image's foreground, reflection, or objects below the horizon are more attractive, in this case, you need to represent these contents with more images, and you need to put the horizon higher in the picture.

Tip 3: Use the foreground element

One of the biggest challenges you may face when photographing objects as big as the sky during the dazzling sunrise and sunset is how to capture a huge scene. The way to ensure success is to include the foreground in the picture to help your audience better understand the space and scale of the scene. If you can add the content that the audience can recognize. Whether it's people, buildings, or animals, the scene will be closely related to the whole scene, making it easier for them to understand the depth and breadth of the scene being photographed.

Tip 4: Shoot a silhouette

If you are photographing a sunset or sunrise, the subject is usually the event itself. When shooting the rising sun, the colors of the sky change from orange and amber to purple and a palette of pink and blue, and the clouds are illuminated by the colors of these lights, making the scene quite spectacular.

If you're shooting a large scene or a cluttered environment, it can be difficult to ensure that the viewer's attention is fully focused on the sunrise and sunset, and the viewer's attention can sometimes be distracted by the foreground. In this case, I recommend that you use a faster shutter speed and point your lens at the sky highlights for metering. Of course, this can also darken the outlook.

This also allows you to creatively transform the subject, building and foreground details into dark silhouettes against the bright sky. Rather than completely eliminating the "detail" in the image, it changes it to a simpler, darker shape in the image to stand in sharp contrast to a beautiful sunrise or sunset background.

Tip 5: Use multiple exposures

The next tip I'm going to share with you requires a little bit of Photoshop experience. Learning and improving post processing skills is essential for sunrise and sunset photography. When taken at dawn or dusk, light levels vary greatly with time, and it is almost impossible to capture a beautiful sky and a normal exposure foreground in the same photograph. Usually only one or the other exposure can be done correctly, but there is one way to do it, and that is to use multiple exposures.

If you combine multiple exposures on the same subject, you need to change the Settings inside the camera to better expose different areas of the image independently of each other, and then fuse them all together for an incredible shot. Multiple exposure is a common technique used by many professional photographers and is definitely one you should start practicing now!

Tip 6: Longer exposure times and ND filters

Clouds in the sky, moving objects in the foreground, or any movement in the frame can make shooting difficult. As the light decreases, it is not easy to get a clear picture of the stationary motion elements. Therefore, increasing exposure time is a good way to solve this problem. It will blur most movements or create more artistic or creative images. Whether it's turning cars into riveting light tracks, turning flowing water into soft creaminess, or turning floating clouds into soft trails in the wind, it makes all the difference.

To increase exposure time when shooting in bright scenes, the camera lens can be combined with a neutral density filter to reduce the amount of light reaching the sensor, thus achieving a longer shutter speed.

Tip # 7: Measure your highlights

As you probably already know, it's better to shoot under - exposed than overexposed. This is because underexposed photos can still pull out details from the shadows, but overexposed photos cannot recover details from the highlights.

Sometimes you may be confused about how to measure the light while photographing the sky at sunset or sunrise. But my advice is to point your lens at the highlights of the sky for metering (not including the sun!). . This means that you can expose the brightest areas of the image correctly and still recover details from dark areas; If you aim the exposure at the dark area, the highlight area will be overexposed and the detail will be lost, resulting in the shooting failure.

Tip 8: Shoot the sun star awn

If you want to shoot images that include artificial light or a variety of natural light, you can consider a combination of landscapes and urban landscapes to capture beautiful sun and star awning effects.

This can be done by using a smaller aperture (a higher-value F-stop) to reduce the aperture into which light enters, thereby refracting the light and creating an attractive star-shaped appearance around the light source in the image. You can combine sunrise or sunset with other light sources, such as street lights and car lights, to capture images that have depth and interest to the viewer.

Tip 9: Use a tripod

No matter what type of sunset or sunrise you photograph, use a stable tripod. Using a tripod allows you to use a slower shutter speed, or take multiple exposures, and capture extremely accurate compositions. All of this will require a stable tripod that won't wobble in the wind or on slight contact. If the wind is strong when shooting, or your tripod is not very stable, as an additional precaution, you can hang the counterweight under the tripod to increase the weight and stability of the equipment being used, and use the "wide leg" position of the tripod where possible.

Tip 10: Use a remote shutter release

Use a remote shutter release when shooting sunsets and sunrises. This device allows you to easily trigger the shutter from a distance without the risk of moving the device and accidentally adjusting the composition.

Before purchasing a remote shutter release, check to see if it is compatible with your camera. For example, I use a Canon camera, which turns my phone into a wireless shutter release and allows me to change camera Settings remotely. Of course, most major manufacturers will roll out similar features in the future.

If your camera doesn't work with your phone, I suggest you buy a remote shutter release. It reduces your contact with the camera and minimizes the risk of blurry shots caused by accidental movement or shaky lenses. If your camera does not support a remote shutter release, a wired shutter is also more stable than a manual shutter release.

conclusion

As I said at the beginning of this article, "A good sunrise or sunset can be one of the most mesmerizing images nature has to offer," I hope these 10 tips and tips will help you master the skills necessary to capture truly perfect sunrises and sunsets.

Of course this requires constant practice and a lot of early and late returns. But in the end your hard work will yield truly stunning images that will allow more people to see the neglected natural wonders that happen around us every day, and perhaps that's the beauty of taking pictures of sunrises and sunsets.

If you are a fan of sunrise and sunset photography, canvas floating frame or you have the perfect sunrise and sunset photography, please share in the discussion section below! Here is thousands of light and shadow, please pay attention to us, every day to share photography skills!