Photographing At Sunrise

There is a general saying in photography, sunrise and sunset are usually the best time to take photographs as compared to say mid day. This is especially a motto followed by landscape photographers. There is a reason for this. During sunrise and sunset the light is very directional ie it comes in at an angle from the side, as compared to mid day when it comes in from the top. The directional quality of light usually creates more depth in the photograph.

Another reason for photographing during these times of day is that the colour of the light is more orangish. Sometimes you get magenta sky's as well, especially if it has rained and there are clouds all around. You can use a filter to recreate this colour cast or edit the photos in software to recreate the effect. So if you love doing landscape photography then you may as well get used to getting up early and staying up late. You might want to get up early more if you are shooting city scapes as the streets are mostly empty during mornings.

Here are a few photos I took at don of the world heritage sight Qutub Minar. I used a CPL and  FL-W filter. The images are mostly straight out of the camera with minor edits.

Qutub Minar at Sunrise

Settings 1/50 ƒ/8 ISO 200 18 mm (18-55mm)

Settings 1/160 ƒ/4.5 ISO 500 29 mm (18-55mm)

Qutub Minar at Sunrise

Settings 0.5 ƒ/10 ISO 200 75 mm (55-200 mm)

Happy shooting

Stacking filters

This past week I was out shooting in Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary and I had the opportunity to try out my new filters. Not every one is a fan of stacking filters as it reduces the picture quality. I on the other had tend to do it a lot. The image below The light on camera left was three stops more than the one on the right. The fix a three stop ND filter and I added a Sunset filter in front of it just to warm up the image a bit. What you see is a photo straight out of the camera. Over the years I have found my self doing less and less editing and spend more time composing and tinkering the settings on the camera. That's it for this week. Until next time happy shooting

Creating Dramatic Sky's with Filters

Recently I was out and about in the streets of Gurgaon doing some photography of architecture and wanted to create some images with nice dramatic sky's. As the sun started to set I did not get the beautiful deep reds you get at sun-set time. Anyone who has visited Gurgaon would know that the place is notorious for its ugly greyish blue sky's, sometimes even on clear days!. Solution - Filters. I had brought along my graduated sunset filter. Just put the filter in front of the lens and the sky goes from being boring and dull to dramatic pink or orange. Thought the below image could have be edited and created in post processing I was not keen on editing the images on my system.

What you see below are the same images with minor differences in white balance. The one with a pinkish shade has a florescent white balance while the one with the orange colour has a daylight white balance. (These images are strait out of the camera with only change of white balance in post processing.)

Photographing Sunrises and Sunsets

I am sure all of us have looked at a sunrise or sunset and picked up your camera and when click it and you see the final image it is nothing like what you saw especially if you shot it auto. For this you need to go to full manual. Before I give you the shot cut to shooting sunsets you need to know some thing about the camera. Your camera at the moment cannot see what your eye can see. It can either see the foreground or the background if you shoot directly into the light. It does not have the dynamic range. So make the most of what you get. You want to shoot the beautiful colours of the sky then just expose for that. This is where metering comes in. When your camera is in auto it is for the most part evaluating the whole scene and takes an average of the light coming in and then determines the shutter speed and aperture. Because the sun is so bright it throws the average off and what you get is an over exposed image. That one bright spot has moved the average up.


How to get around this. There is simple technique, you put the camera on full manual, put the camera on matrix metering. What ever reading you get for your exposure for the shutter under expose by two or three stops. So if you get a shutter reading for 1/50 for correct exposure just double or triple the shutter speed and you will have the exposure you want. Another way to go is to bracket the shots and create an HDR. This way you will get the beautiful light on the foreground and the great colours of the sky.


A few things you should keep in mind when shooting sunrises and sunsets is to be prepared. Try and scout the location in advance especially for sunrises. It's dark and you don't want to get hurt getting to the place to shoot. Having the composition in mind will help. Know what time the sunrise/sunset is going to happen. You don't want to be late. Carry a tripod and keep gear to a minimum. 


You don't need fancy equipment to pull this off but it would be nice to have. Some photographers use a tilt shift lens when they photograph sunrises so they can move the plain of DOF. There are some who use coloured filters to accentuate the colours. You can also use graduated ND filter. A graduated ND filter will give you a few stops of light difference between the sky and the foreground. This means less work in post processing (especially if you are doing HDR via bracketing). 


Most importantly once got your shot do take a moment to savour the beautiful scenery. Often times we photographers forget to enjoy the moment when trying to nail the perfect shot.

If you found all of the above stuff confusing check out what James Beltz from www.phototips.biz has to say. He really makes it simple in the following video

Here are some links you might find useful



12 Tips for Photographing Stunning Sunsets
SUNRISE AND SUNSET PHOTOGRAPHY

Filters continued...

Last time when I wrote about filters I had mentioned about staking filters and neutral density filters, so this time it made sense to continue the filter theme. Before I delve into staking filters I'll give you a brief about few more filters. One of those are neutral density (ND) filters ( I had mentioned those in the previous post as well).


Neutral density filters, as the name suggest, when added in front of the camera, will have a neutral impact on the light i.e. to say there will not add any colour to the light which enters the lens. Think of it like a pair of sunglasses for your camera. The amount of light which is cut out is measured in stops (f-stops) so you have a 1 stop ND filter 2 stop so on. Some of the use cases are for when slow shutter speed is required like a waterfalls and in some cases for studio photography as well..


Let's start with the motion blur, say you are a water fall at mid day (sometimes life can give you such surprises...) and you cant wait till evening. So you do the you close the aperture to f16 and bring the ISO to 100 or 50 (if your camera goes that low) and the light meter in your camera gives you shutter speed of 1/50. Now you are reluctant to go to F22 but you want a shutter speed of 1/30'th or lower because that's when you start picking up the motion blur. Now that 1 stop ND filter is just the perfect answer. You use the filter and cut the light and you are done. Even if you have 1 stop filter you will cut the shutter speed to 1/25 and your task is done. Now lets say you want to get to 1 sec exposure have two a 1ND filter and 3 stop filter. You STACK the two filters and you have 4 stops less which is almost 1 sec and you are done.

Another use case may be to remove traffic from the road. ( You could use a 9 stops ND filter and remove moving traffic from a the road by giving an extended exposer, though you would need an awesome tripod which does soaks up the vehicular movement and does not move your camera during the long exposure)


I mentioned studios earlier so lets say you are in a small studio and you power down your strobes down but don't want to go lower or can't go lower because of various reasons. Your light meter measures f 5.6 at the lowest at ISO 100 and you wan't to shoot at 2.8 because you want a shallow DOF on your images. Add the ND filter and you have the F stop you want.


The other kinds filters are, Colour filters, Graduated ND filter and Graduated colour filters. You can use the Graduated ND filters have a stop difference between the top and bottom of the filter. These are perfect for landscapes when you an underexpose the sky and expose landscape well. This is an alternative to doing HDR. 

Another option would be add a sunset filter(aka tobacco filter) to get a sun set during the day. You can also saturate the colours of the sunrise/sunset by using the colour filters. 


However, every thing comes at a price. When you add a filter you reduce the quality of light and sharpness of the image (especially in case of cheaper filters) Some people are dead against adding any filter in front of the camera and prefer to add the colour cast in software. It's a personal preference. If you are like me who does not like editing too much. (every hour I am editing I not doing something else I like) What ever your take on filters they are certainly worth a try.