Tips for Sunset photos

[SammyJ]

Hi all,

Had a nice sunset last night so put the drone up above the house and took a few snaps. They are ok but I know they could be better. I took the ND filter off and realised after in my rush I hadn't put the settings to manual.

So can any of you experienced members advise what settings to use and any other tips when taking sunset pics. We get some amazing opportunities this time of year when we get the occasional cloudy day.

Thanks in advance
Sam

 

[Aerial-Pixel]

I do all my sunset photos in AEB mode (and most of my other photos for that matter), if you aren't familiar AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing) the camera will take 3 or 5 photos (depending on what you set it on) each photo will be different exposures, you then combine them in post processing in either Photoshop, Aurora HDR, Photomatix, Etc. and you get all the highlights and shadows. Below is an example I did with the M2P

 

[Meta4]

I took the ND filter off and realised after in my rush I hadn't put the settings to manual.

So can any of you experienced members advise what settings to use and any other tips when taking sunset pics. We get some amazing opportunities this time of year when we get the occasional cloudy day.

Manual or auto makes no big difference, either can get good exposure.
The problem with shots like that are the big difference between the bright sun and the dark foreground.
It's more than the camera's sensor can deal with properly.
Taking a straight single shot, you are always going to have underexposed darker areas and overexposed bright areas.

Without doing something like mentioned in post #2, you will always have difficulty.
The best you could do might be to shoot when the sun is behind cloud to take some of the edge off it.

 

[macfawlty]

Use the AEB plus manual bracketing to have even more exposures to choose from.

 

[BD0G]

All great suggestions. I also take the majority of picture using AEB and combining them afterwards.

Another tip dont point the Mavic directly at the sun , but more of an angle. This can help keep the exposure in check.

 

[bushie]

Use the AEB plus manual bracketing to have even more exposures to choose from.

Hi all,

Had a nice sunset last night so put the drone up above the house and took a few snaps. They are ok but I know they could be better. I took the ND filter off and realised after in my rush I hadn't put the settings to manual.

So can any of you experienced members advise what settings to use and any other tips when taking sunset pics. We get some amazing opportunities this time of year when we get the occasional cloudy day.

Thanks in advance
SamView attachment 58252View attachment 58252View attachment 58253View attachment 58254

Last night was certainly a brilliant suset. I like you are disapointed in my results. Forgot to take the ND32 filter off (had a couple of glasses of red so was not thinking clearly) and probably started sbooting a bit late.

 

[mfishhead]

Great sunset here in St Augustine too. I ran out and got several shots with AEB but haven’t combined them yet.

 

[SammyJ]

Wow!! Thankyou all, that is the sort of info I'm chasing. I've not seen the AEB option on my mavic air come to think of it though. Will check it out tomorrow, thanks again.

@mfishhead will be great to see them once you got round to it

 

[SammyJ]

Last night was certainly a brilliant suset. I like you are disapointed in my results. Forgot to take the ND32 filter off (had a couple of glasses of red so was not thinking clearly) and probably started sbooting a bit late.

How you been finding the footage with the ND32, I been using it as we've just had sunny blue skies lately. I tried the 64 but I'm sure that's more for sunny days with glare from snow or ocean etc. Way to dark for grassy parks where I was. I think the 8 & 16 will come in handy during the change of seasons. Comment about the wine made me laugh.... most would relate to one or a few of those momments lol
Cheers

 

[Aerial-Pixel]

How you been finding the footage with the ND32, I been using it as we've just had sunny blue skies lately. I tried the 64 but I'm sure that's more for sunny days with glare from snow or ocean etc. Way to dark for grassy parks where I was. I think the 8 & 16 will come in handy during the change of seasons. Comment about the wine made me laugh.... most would relate to one or a few of those momments lol
Cheers

Don't use your ND filters for photos unless you want motion blur (like blurring water in a waterfall, cars on a road, etc) ND filters are primarily for video. Use your ND filters to slow your shutter speed down when shooting video. When shooting video you want your shutter speed to be twice your frame rate, so if you are shooting 30FPS you want your shutter speed to be 1/60th. Hope this helps, a lot of drone photographers have this misconception about ND filters, they wonder why their photos are blurrier after adding the ND's, any motion by the drone is noticeable with the filters on.

 

[izzca]

With the older Mavic Pro (not the 2), I believe a lot of people needed to use an ND filter during really bright days when the fastest shutter speed (1/8000s) is not enough to overcome overexposure due to the fixed wide aperture (f/2.8) design of the old camera. With the Hasselblad, unless you're going for an 8 second exposure shot, which case would probably be blurred even with zero wind speed in the sky, just dial your aperture all the way to f/11. If it's still overexposed, then use an ND... A 3 stop should be enough.

 

[Bigbird48]

 

[offtheback]

With the older Mavic Pro (not the 2), I believe a lot of people needed to use an ND filter during really bright days when the fastest shutter speed (1/8000s) is not enough to overcome overexposure due to the fixed wide aperture (f/2.8) design of the old camera. With the Hasselblad, unless you're going for an 8 second exposure shot, which case would probably be blurred even with zero wind speed in the sky, just dial your aperture all the way to f/11. If it's still overexposed, then use an ND... A 3 stop should be enough.

Best not to use F/11 as diffraction in the lens will yield poor sharpness.The sharpest apertures appear to be F/3.5-F/4.5 though 2.8+up to 5.6 or 6.3i s decent as well.If you're going to combine images in post edit AEB should work work but if you're going to use a single exposure make sure you don't let the highlights get burned out--too bright.You can recover some shadow detail but the noise will begin to appear.

 

[bushie]

How you been finding the footage with the ND32, I been using it as we've just had sunny blue skies lately. I tried the 64 but I'm sure that's more for sunny days with glare from snow or ocean etc. Way to dark for grassy parks where I was. I think the 8 & 16 will come in handy during the change of seasons. Comment about the wine made me laugh.... most would relate to one or a few of those momments lol
Cheers

I mainly shoot video and with the weather here that means an ND32 most of the time. Also have water bodies in most shots

 

[izzca]

Best not to use F/11 as diffraction in the lens will yield poor sharpness.The sharpest apertures appear to be F/3.5-F/4.5 though 2.8+up to 5.6 or 6.3i s decent as well.If you're going to combine images in post edit AEB should work work but if you're going to use a single exposure make sure you don't let the highlights get burned out--too bright.You can recover some shadow detail but the noise will begin to appear.

On my DSLR, I go all the way to f32 with my Tamron lens for 30 sec and longer exposures, sometimes 4 minutes or for light reflactions. So far, I've done shots at f/11 @ 1/120s and they're sharp as it should be for flare shots. I still have to try a sunset LE but it's been gloomy these days or I'm at work when those pretty sunsets come up..... if you wanna check my work let me know. I'll tell you my IG handle.