Make your work more distinctive during prime time

"Prime time" is the most popular time for photographers, canvas prints and although other times can produce great pictures, the morning and evening of the day are generally recognized as a source of inspiration. Just because sunrises and sunsets are beautiful doesn't mean they're easy to photograph. In this article, I'll show you some tips for shooting sunrises and sunsets, including exposure, creativity, and post processing. These techniques will improve your ability to photograph sunrises and sunsets and make your work more perfect. If you're interested, let's get started!

Exposure at sunrise and sunset

As a new day approaches (or comes to an end), canvas prints online you may find it difficult to get the right exposure for your shoot during this time. The biggest problem is that prime time is not as bright as the rest of the day. Therefore, you have to face and deal with low-light scenes. This is one of the reasons landscape photographers always use a tripod. Using a tripod to extend the shutter speed in a dim scene will result in the correct exposure. But even if you're using a tripod at this point, shooting isn't all that well. The sky is usually several times brighter than the foreground at sunset, resulting in an image with too much contrast. The correct solution to this problem is a challenge for photography lovers.

As in the picture above, the sky is too bright in the background and the foreground is too dark, which is typical for sunrise and sunset.

So, canvas floating frame what can you do to make the photos look more like what you actually see? You can use several techniques.

1. Expose as normal

With this method, you don't need to do anything special, just take a picture as usual. All you have to do is make sure that the highlights in the sky are not completely white. If the sky background is overexposed, it cannot be recovered later, so make sure the sky background is properly exposed.

You can then use post-processing software (such as PS or LR) to restore the details in the shadows using the software's "shadow" or "dark" slider (or any similar slider). You can also darken the highlights. The final adjustment results are as follows:

Compared to the above photo, I only made three adjustments in Lightroom: -50 highlights, + 35 shadows, and +20 saturation. With these adjustments you can restore more detail in the clouds and rocks, while still leaving the elements with a natural feel. While this tuning technique is very effective, it is not a panacea. Sometimes maximizing the shadow to a certain extent can seem very unnatural. Sometimes it is also possible to make noise more visible in the dark part of the image by adjusting. As a result, some photographers use other techniques rather than post adjustments.

2, filters,

Filters are the most important accessory for a landscape photographer. The purpose of a filter is to physically change the light reaching the camera's sensor. The two most important filters for sunrise and sunset are the polarizer and the gradient neutral density filter.

Polarizer: These filters are useful for a number of reasons, but their primary use in capturing sunrise and sunset is that they can darken certain areas of the sky. Specifically, if there are few clouds in the sky, using a polarizer at a 90-degree Angle to the sun causes a significant decrease in brightness. So a polarizer is a great way to darken the sky. (The point here is that combining a wide-angle lens with a polarizer can cause uneven sky light and is best avoided.)

However, the Gradient Neutral Density Filter (ND) is a more flexible filter for darkening the sky and can be used in any direction you are facing.

ND filter: This filter is placed in front of the lens. The darker part of the filter will block out some light in the sky, so as to achieve a balanced exposure. Typically, you need a bracket to hold it in place, which slides the filter up and down to match the height of the sky in the image.

The gradient neutral density filter is completely unbiased. They just darken the top of the picture (or any other part of it) and that's it. Since the sky in an image is almost always brighter than the foreground, gradient filters are a good filter and they are useful at sunrise and sunset.

3. HDR and synthesis technology

The final method is to mix the scenes you shoot together. If you've heard of HDR (high dynamic range) photography before, you're familiar with how it works. With HDR, you can take a series of photos without changing composition. It can take three or more pictures. For example, one exposes the sky and the other exposes the foreground, sometimes including other images in the middle, which are then put together through post-processing.

The technique is useful because, in some cases, it is impossible to reconstruct what we see at the scene from a single exposure. Even the best camera sensors don't have enough dynamic range (although today's cameras are getting better).

One problem with this approach, of course, is that it's easy to overdo it: by creating an image with more detail in highlights and shadows than the actual scene, the viewer feels unreal and may not accept it.

It is worth mentioning that if you are shooting fast moving objects, adopting HDR is not appropriate. For example, when you shoot a scene of waves rolling, the images will be quite different each time, which makes it difficult to make a clear composition. For example, when you shoot a tree floating in the wind, it is also difficult to combine them with HDR technology.

That's why HDR is not a perfect technique. However, it is still a useful technique if you know its limitations and are able to play to its strengths while avoiding its weaknesses.

reative shooting of sunrises and sunsets

Creativity plays an important role in photography, no matter when you take pictures. Although you must have the right exposure and focus in order to take good pictures, you still need to use your creativity to take better pictures.

Creative photography in light, emotion, composition and other aspects. If you can handle this correctly, your photos will take a big step forward.

Prime time photography is no different in terms of creativity than the rest of the day. But making the most of light, emotion and composition at sunrise or sunset can make a difference.

1, light

How to be more creative during prime time? Master these three techniques to make your work more distinctive

During prime time, not only are the colors of the light different, but the Angle of the light is lower and the overall light tends to be softer (because it filters out more air). When the sun is at a lower altitude on the horizon, you can get a completely different quality of light using cis. You can also take backlit silhouettes toward the sun. Just facing the sun creates long dramatic shadows. When the sun shines from an Angle, pay attention to the different types of light available and use them to your creative advantage. This is one reason many photographers teach you to keep turning and looking around while taking pictures. If you shoot in one direction all the time, you'll miss a lot of incredible scenes.

2, emotional,

Light can convey strong emotions in a photograph. At sunrise and sunset, the original features of the scene change. Please take full advantage of this feature. If the sunset brings soft and beautiful light to your subject, try photographing something equally pleasant and peaceful. Or, if it's a sunset after a shower, with high contrast and strong colors, you can look for more dramatic themes in this scene. The ultimate goal is to create something unique and visually striking." Good light is good because it makes your subject look sharper and more correct. Even the most beautiful sunset in the world is not suitable for photography if the light is contrary to your intention (vision) or does not match the characteristics of your subject.

3, the composition

Most of the composition of the sunrise and sunset photographs revolves around the sky. Consider the proportion of the sky in the picture. Are the clouds very beautiful at this point, or do the elements in the foreground have particularly interesting colors?

There's no right or wrong way to do this, because even if the sky is spectacular, the foreground of the scene can take up more space. It also depends on the type of subject you want to shoot and the plan of the shoot.

In this photo, for example, the sky is not the subject. Although there are some interesting clouds above, the foreground of the beach and waves is even more interesting.

Here, you can also change the composition. Instead of focusing on interesting prospects, focus on the characteristic sky. If the sky is full of brilliant colors, you may find it difficult to give it up completely, but sometimes you have to do it in order to capture intentions and goals.

There are other elements of composition that are important for sunset and sunrise shots, such as finding a way to balance the sun (if the sun is in the picture), and most of the principles of composition are the same as they would be in a normal shot, which I won't repeat here.

Post production skills

Even with the use of filters, the sky in sunset and sunrise photos tends to be brighter than the foreground and not fully balanced by exposure. You can fix this by tweaking later.

For example, you can recover details in highlights and shadows that may not be visible in the image, but still exist in the RAW RAW format. In most post-processing software, this is easy to do. Just reduce the highlight and lighten the shadow. However, acrylic mounting many photographers fall into the trap of over-adjusting. If you increase the brightness of the shadows so that the foreground is brighter than the sky, the whole picture becomes problematic. Accordingly, must achieve proper adjustment. The same is true for saturation adjustment. Sunrise and sunset scenes are usually already very colorful, and you don't need to saturate your photos as much as you do your brightness.