Off to Kauai in a few weeks and I was planning on a few excursions down to the beach for some sunset photography and into the hills for some misty dawn type shots. However, I'm severely hindered by a lack of any real photographic expertise other than switching the camera to fully auto. Seams a shame just to do that though so any useful hints & tips on settings/filters best suited to this kind of work would be greatly appreciated.

If you have a programable camera that can be set to manual the look at what the camera settings are in auto mode then switch to manual. If you what the exposure lighter slow down the shutter, darker then speed it up. If you need more control then you will need to adjust the F stop. Smaller number more light. And take a tripod!

I rarely use filters for sunsets, I even take the protective filter off to reduce flaring. Take your meter reading away from the sun, else everything will be overexposed. Have you got room for one more on this trip?

HI Phil. I shoot way too many sunrise and sunset pictures for my health, and my best advice is this: Learn how to use the AE (Aperture / Shutter Priority Mode) setting on your camera.

When you use the auto setting, the camera does one of several things. It may set the focus based upon what's in the center of the frame. That's usually marked by a square or a cross or some such icon. It may evaluate the entire frame (in advanced models) to decide which setting is best. It may do one of these using sound waves to determine distance, or it may use an algorithm to decide based on the viewfinder contents how to set the focus. If you have an SLR camera that provides an optical image (through the lense) as opposed to a digital representation of what the lense sees, you can more effectively use fthe manual focus feature. Otherwise point the camera at some solid object that's at the same distance as what you want to shoot, and press the shutter release half-way to set the focus, then hold it until you press it the rest of the way to get the shot.

Now for the exposure setting. If you have an AE priority mode on your camera select it. I recommend first selecting the aperture for the type of shots your going to be shooting. A wide aperture will provide a greater depth of field like Waters' End which is usually a desirable effect. Once the aperture is set you can mess with the shutter speed as you shoot. Now below about 1/30th of a second will produce a blurry image because of your hand motion, (see My Way) so either stay above that or use a tripod. You will get pretty quick with these settings the more you use them, and there's nothing quite like a dawn or sunset field trip to practice. Faster shutter speeds like 1/1000th of a second will tend to produce crisper images.

If you have the capability in your camera to select sensitivity, also known as ASA, set it to 100 or as close as your camera will go. Example settings are 1000, 400, 200, 100, and 50. Set this to the lowest possible sensitivity for greater detail. I keep mine at 50 all the time.

You'll probably find the best photos come facing the light source as it tends lo leave trails across the water, but don't neglect the images shot facing away from the light. It will throw really neat light on the subject matter downrange, and you can get some really neato shots facing away from the light source.

Finally and most importantly take many photos at many different settings. When you review them later on your computer you will see things you didn't see before, and you will be glad you took this advice. Don't worry about writing down camera settings, because the newer cameras (since 2002) store the camera settings in the image's EXIF data which you can view by selecting "Image" / "Information" when you're reviewing the images later.

Good day all, and thanks REG for the informative explanation...cut and paste to my email now, have a good day all...

Thanks to Don, Robert & Regmar for the cool advice - i'll be taking along the new purchase (Canon EOS 350D/Rebel XT) which has Canon's seven point focusing system and as far as I know can be tweaked in all of the mentioned settings options.

Excellent explanation, Regmar.

What I do to properly expose skies and sunsets is to shoot in Manual (as opposed to P, Av, TV, etc.) and spot meter off of a midtone (found roughly halfway between the horizon and the sun). Then, looking through your viewfinder (with the spotmeter circle still over what would like to expose for), adjust the shutter speed/aperture until the needle, or dot on the exposure scale is right in the middle. This method of exposure gives you a good starting point to experiment from.

And remember, use your histogram, screen brightness is an inaccurate way to judge exposure.

yes, or turn it so that highlights flash or something similar, then make the picture as bright as you can very little to no highlights flashing. i dont know if straight away from a sunset/rise makes a very good picture because its like using a flash, it makes the texture flat, the textures will really jump out if you shoot perpendicular to the sun. also if you're doing a wide angle kindof shot, with something in the close foreground sometimes experimenting with a fill flash to light up the near object, rather than silhouetting it can be neat.

I may be visiting my uncle that I have never met in Palau in a year or so. Do remind me to check back on this thread!

all of the good advice went to pot im afraid as i developed a nasty habit of getting drunk in beach bars watching the sunset and thinking ill do it tomorrow. (sits smarting a little in LAX waiting to go home with only a handful of sunset shots on the mempry card)

A correction to Regmar's comment on sunset/sunrise photos. A wide aperture (lower number) will let more light in but will reduce the depth of field. A small aperture (higher number) will let less light in but will give you a greater depth of field. Shots with the sun in them should be set to a smaller aperture to keep the sun from over-exposing the image.

That's ok Phil. Never crawl with camera in hand, it's bad on your knees and gets sand in your expensive digital

make sure to use a flash to properly illuminate backlit subjects when using the sunset as a background for portraits etc

I stand corrected. Thanks Tom(and Carl). This is the kind of thread I like to see as we all get real information from it.