Shooting Perfect Sunsets

By Arthur H. Bleich

You can’t beat a magnificent sunset to make you feel, as Robert Browning put it, “God’s in his heaven. All’s right with the world.”

Frequently though, all is not right with the pictures you took. Without the salty aroma of the ocean, balmy summer breezes, or the sounds of birds singing in the trees, your sunset photos can be a real letdown. While there’s no way to bring back the sensory elements, just a bit of pre-planning can give your pictures that missing zing.

If the sun is in the picture, your camera’s light meter is going to say: “Oops, too bright. I’d better make the aperture smaller or shutter speed faster, or both, to cut down some of that light.” The result is a perfectly exposed sun, at least as much as possible, and sky colors that may be too dark.

Then again, if there is no sun in the picture, the metering system might see the colors of the sky as too dark and tell the camera to open the aperture wider or use a slower shutter speed, or both, to get what it thinks should be a good picture. The result is washed-out colors that do not have the richness and saturation you remember.

To get better results, use your camera’s exposure compensation feature to second-guess its choice of exposure. You can access this feature with a dedicated button on more advanced cameras or as a menu item on simpler ones. It overrides the camera’s normal exposure setting to deliberately underexpose or overexpose your images. Plus values make pictures lighter, while minus values make them darker.

Shoot the first picture at what the camera chooses. Then take several more using positive and negative exposure values, depending on the scene. One of them will stand out just the way you envisioned it. A few cautions: If the sun is in the scene, avoid going over plus one, as anything higher may be too bright for some camera sensors. Also, remember to return the exposure compensation to zero when you are finished, because most cameras retain the last setting even after being turned off and back on.

From a composition standpoint, the most dramatic sunsets are framed by objects in the foreground, have a center of interest further away, or both. Many sunset photos fall flat because there is no sense of depth created by foreground elements, or nothing in the distance to provide scale before the eye meets the horizon.

Try including something in the foreground, such as a tree or a person silhouetted against the colorful sky. Make sure your flash is off for this effect. More distant subjects could include structures like a lighthouse or a sailboat, or even a barn or grazing cattle if you are photographing a rural sunset.

Finally, to enhance the colors, take your camera off the Auto white balance setting and manually set it to Cloudy. This adds reds and yellows, warming up the tones so the colors appear more vibrant.

A dramatic sunset at sea was shot in the Caribbean by workshop attendee Birget Bienek during a digital photography cruise conducted by the writer of this article.

Original Publication Date: March 28, 2014

Article Last updated: May 01, 2026

Related Posts and Information