Revealing the shooting skills of sunrise and sunset

Revealing the shooting skills of sunrise and sunset

Dark blue sky, flaming clouds, sunset and sunrise always make photographers unconsciously press the shutter, although this has been repeated countless times. How to shoot a touching sunrise and sunset scene? Next, I will tell you about the precautions and shooting skills of shooting sunrise and sunset.

Prepare items:

1, where to shoot

The idea of shooting the sunrise and sunset came into being. The first question to consider next is: Where should I shoot the sunrise and sunset?

Everyone knows that the sun rises and sets in the west and crosses the sky from left to right. Before shooting, you need to think about the effect you want to shoot in advance. Generally choose places with a wide view: beaches, lakes, hilltops and even the roofs of cities.

Of course, you must choose a place where you can see the sunrise or sunset. If conditions permit, it is best to shoot in the wild. After all, the air in the wild is much more thorough than in the city. But if you shoot in the city, you can also take very good photos.

But whether in the wild or in the city, the location should be relatively open and the terrain should be high. When shooting in the wild, choose a higher place, such as the mountain, and choose the angle of view from high to low, so that there will be no unnecessary objects blocking the sun near and on the ground when shooting, which is beneficial to the performance of the main content. When the sun rises, the mountain peaks will have rich effects in the big backlight. If you shoot in a city, you can choose a higher building with the same effect and richer levels.

In addition, a higher shooting viewpoint is also beneficial to improve the contrast and composition of the picture. Of course, it doesn't mean that you have to choose highland to shoot this kind of theme. If your location has a wide view, such as the Great Lakes, this location is also an excellent location for shooting sunrises and sunsets. So don't have a fixed mentality when choosing a shooting location, as long as you can show your own photography creativity, it is a great shooting location. The choice of location is very important for shooting this kind of scenery theme. If you shoot the sunrise and sunset in the right place, you are half successful!

2. When will you take the shot?

Sunrise and sunset have strong timeliness, and their performances are different in different seasons and different time periods, which requires us to attach great importance to the choice of shooting time between shooting.

As far as seasons are concerned, the best seasons for shooting sunrises and sunsets are spring and autumn. Compared with summer, these two seasons have a late sunrise and an early sunset, which are conducive to shooting. There are more clouds and it is easier to meet each other? The sky is full of rosy clouds.

The specific time is determined by the author's intention, the choice of place, the local sunrise and sunset schedule and the season at that time. Before shooting, you can pay attention to the time when the sun sets in the west. If possible, you can ask the local meteorological department for a sunrise and sunset schedule.

If it's convenient, go to the place where you chose the site several times, so that you can better understand the shooting time. In addition, before leaving, pay more attention to the weather forecast of the day!

Specific shooting articles:

1. When should I press the shutter?

The time of sunrise or sunset is very short. In this short time, the scenery may change greatly every minute. Take sunset as an example. Sunset also has several processes, which can be divided into four, that is, the sun turns yellow, red, egg-shaped, then disappears in the horizontal line, and finally the sky turns from red to purple, and then becomes deep blue.

During this period, the light changed greatly, from hot sunshine to dark blue, and the foreground, such as the light of the city, also lit up, which seemed to be a long time. However, the sun disappears at the mountain line or the horizontal line really quickly, and it may sink just two minutes after hitting the mountain line, so it is natural to be careless.

When the sun goes down, the wonderful colors have just begun, or after the sun goes down for more than ten minutes, there is nothing and the sky is getting darker and darker. Many times, I see my colleagues start to pack up their equipment and go home, but in fact, there is still more than half an hour of good weather after sunset. If you shoot in a city, the lights in the city will become the best theme, and many perfect sunset photos will be completed at that time, because the light difference has narrowed, and the prospects of buildings or villages are still hierarchical.

2. Cloud shooting

Cloud is a natural reflective object in shooting, which can spread the red light of the sun, thus constantly changing works.

When shooting, pay special attention to what happens when clouds cover the sunset. At this time, the sun's rays will come out from behind the clouds, forming a large scene of radioactive rays, thus adding a very touching effect to the photos.

Because of the changeable clouds, photographers are required to pay attention to observation when shooting and seize the opportunity to press the shutter. When shooting with clouds as the main body, generally speaking, we should aim the metering point at the clouds to measure the light, but at the same time, we should be careful not to expose ourselves to the sun.

3. Prospect application

It is also common to shoot the sunrise and sunset without clouds in the sky. In order to avoid the sky being too monotonous, using some surrounding foreground as a foil, such as sparse leaves and branches as the foreground of the empty sky, can help balance the structure of the scene.

But if the foreground is too much or too heavy, it will cover most of the sky and affect the balance of the picture. However, it is also a good method to take the foreground as the main body and the sunset/sunrise scenery behind it as the background.

If you want to use the foreground to represent the sunset or sunrise in the sky, the foreground is often regarded as a silhouette effect, and the acquisition of silhouette effect photos makes full use of the light difference between the subject and the background. Generally speaking, the backlight at sunrise and sunset is easy to show the effect of silhouette, because the light is the softest at this time. Choosing the position and angle in advance, waiting for the sun to rise from the horizon, or set on the horizon, from red to orange, or from orange to red, is the best time to shoot.

At this time, the exposure should follow the principle of underexposure rather than overexposure, and the exposure should be measured according to the background. Only in this way can the subject be seriously underexposed and form a strong silhouette.

First, choose the metering mode of the camera as? Spot metering? Next, select a metering point in the brighter sky for metering. If the camera in your hand has AE lock function, press the AE lock key of the camera to lock the exposure value (for cameras without AE exposure lock function, you can press and hold the shutter key to lock); Finally, re-adjust the composition and shoot with the exposure combination just now, so that you can shoot a perfect silhouette effect.

Step 4 reflect

Many excellent photos of sunrise and sunset are taken by the water, because at sunrise or sunset, the sparkling water reflects beautiful rosy clouds, and the sails on the water add a little vividness to the picture, which is really a good photographic subject. Shooting the reflection of the water surface will add a lot of color to the photos of sunrise and sunset, and a calm sea surface or lake can reflect the scenery in the sky.

It presents a mirror-like image, which is always disturbed by the breeze blowing over the water. Leave more dazzling light on the water, and draw a light path from the horizon to the foreground of the picture. When the sun goes down, this light path will extend to your eyes.