POTD #20

Photo of the Day

Took this one overlooking the water near the Dungeness Spit in my hometown (Sequim, WA). I know sunsets are cliche and have been done a million times, but I havent done them a million times and I felt like it was something I wanted to play around with and see what my version of a great sunset looked like.

It was alot of fun actually. I did this sunset series last summer, I would check out what time the sun was supposed to set online and drive out to a location I either had a feeling would be a good spot or I had scouted earlier. Summer twilight has got to be my favorite time, when its just getting dark, but it is still nice and warm out.

The Breakdown: The two most important pieces of equipment when taking sunset photos are a sturdy tripod and a remote trigger or timer. Its all about keeping your camera steady for those long exposures.

As far as camera settings go most cameras have a sunset setting (if this doesnt tell you that sunsets are overdone I dont know what will). I used the Spot metering mode on my camera and set it to expose for the sky not the dark foreground. I was more interested in what was going on in the clouds and if I tried using an automatic metering mode it would have taken a longer exposure to properly expose the foreground and would have blown out the sky.

I was playing around with different f-stops to see what I liked best and f10 was giving me the best results. I dont think there is any one perfect aperature setting for sunsets/sunrises. I wanted a very sharp image and I wanted to stop down my lens to avaid Chromatic Abberations (purple fringing). I found the wider I set may apature the softer the image, the more I stopped it down the sharper and if I stopped it down too far the sky got really grainy.

This is one of the lasts shots I took with my cheapo Quantaray QSX 6601 tripod. It didnt occure to me to check the maximum weight load for this tripod when I upgraded to the Canon 5d and the extra couple pounds stripped out the plastic gears. I have upgraded to the Manfrotto 190XPROB with the 484RC2 ball head, awesome tripod! (review coming soon)

After taking the shot I really tweaked the white balance in Photoshop and boosted the blues and reds to get the look I was going for.

Camera:		Canon EOS 5d
Exposure:		0.25 sec (1/4)
Aperture:		f/10
Focal Length:		24 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		0 EV

Here are links to some of the equipment I used to get this shot. If the equipment I used is no longer available I have listed either the newer version or a similar substitute. I no longer use some of the items on this list.

Photoshop CS4

Canon EOS 5d

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM Lens

Sunpak 6601TM Tri-Monopod - This one is pretty close to what I was using at the time. Dont underestimate the importance of a tripod, even if you are using a cheap one it is the only way to guarantee tack sharp photos every time.

Manfrotto 190XPROB Black Tripod Kit with 484RC2 Mini Ball Head - This is the tripod I use now.

Canon Wireless Remote

My Photography Workflow:

I shoot in raw,
organize and review shots in Adobe Bridge,
process raw files in Adobe Camera Raw
and export as .jpeg if im done,
if I need to do more work in Photoshop I export as .tiff,
make final touches in Photoshop,
I add titles, descriptions and keywords in Bridge when im done editing.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.