A foreground subject and clouds often make sunset photographs more interesting.
Photographing sunsets isn't as hard as finding the perfect sunset to be your subject. Clear days do not yield the best sunset pictures, while cloudy skies give drama to the skies. Thick clouds obscure portions of the sky, and wispy clouds take on colors of their own, according to "Take Great Photographs of Sunsets with a Film or Digital Camera" on CameraWorld.com.
Instructions
1. Know where the sun will be setting and scout spots beforehand from which to take your picture.
2. Arrive at least 30 minutes before sunset to give yourself enough time to set up. The colors and cloud effects just before and after the sun sets often are more picturesque than at actual sunset.
3. Manually focus the camera before it gets dark. A camera's autofocus often has difficulty locking in on a subject when it gets dark. Sunset shots are typically focused at infinity.
4. Use a tripod. Most people cannot hold a camera still enough to produce sharply focused pictures at anything less than one-thirtieth of a second.
5. Look for recognizable, prominent subjects to silhouette. Palm trees work for sunset shots on beaches. Sailboats work well for sunsets on a lake. A barn could work for a sunset in the countryside.
6. Take a light reading with the sun outside the frame. To do so, point the lens just to the left or the right of the sun and lock the exposure with the camera's exposure lock feature if it has one, according to Jeff Wignall's "Shoot Better Sunset and Sunrise Photos." Most digital cameras "lock" the exposure by pressing the shutter button halfway down, according to Wignall. Hold it there and recompose your shot. To take the photo, press the shutter the rest of the way down.
7. Bracket some shots by using the camera's exposure-compensation feature. The exposure compensation is usually changed by the control dial and adds or subtracts stops of light by one-third-stop increments.
