Sunsets - with or without filters?

K

Kennett

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Barry
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Can anyone please advise when taking sunsets, what is the correct way to go, with filters (ND Grads) or without?
 
Depends. If you have a foreground and land etc, then you'll need an ND grad to balance out the exposure. Or you can merge two shots in post processing.

If its just of the sky, then you're very unlikely to need a grad as I would imagine everything to be pretty much the same brightness.
 
PERSONALLY, I usually take sunsets over the sea, sometimes with an island included. I just expose for the sunset and let the shore/islands get thrown into silhouette rather than try to retain any detail - the interest in a sunset (for me) is the colours in the sky.
 
Nod said:
PERSONALLY, I usually take sunsets over the sea, sometimes with an island included. I just expose for the sunset and let the shore/islands get thrown into silhouette rather than try to retain any detail - the interest in a sunset (for me) is the colours in the sky.
Click to expand...
would love to see some of your shots Nod?
 
As Nod said. 90% of my sunset photo's are over the sea as its only a 4 minute walk for me. Never use an ND or grad. A normal grad would be no good any way as the brightest part of the image is usually where the sun is and the darkest part of the grad is at the top. You can get specific sunset grads which are darker in the middle but as Nod said go with the colours in the sky and don't bother with filters.
 
There are a few around somewhere, Jason. Not many since I'm not a fan of using screens as a display method, far preferring prints (my best shots get printed at A3+). Here are a couple of examples... All SOOC other than a resize for Flickr. I usually dial in 1-2 stops of underexposure to reduce the tendency of the Sun to blow out.

Sunset at Vik, Iceland. March '15.

077077 by gpn63, on Flickr

Winter sunset, Exeter. December '06.

DSC_5396 by gpn63, on Flickr

Sunset at Elafonisi, Crete. September '06.

DSC_4654 by gpn63, on Flickr
 
Very nice! love the colours in the first...

Looking to get some more this season myself. always nice to see what others are doing - will post some of mine a little later - thank you Nod
 
I should add that I'm not saying that the way I go about it is correct, it's just how I do it! IMO, some ND gradded shots look too artificial - reflections are generally darker than the sky but over filtering can bring the reflections up too far, similarly foregrounds that are backlit usually look dark compared to the sky in the distance. Still better than HDR though!!!
 
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