Sunset Photography is a magical aspect of imaging that brings out the best in us all. It is something that takes time to build over a period of time and that in doing so also lifts our appreciation of this special time of day. Here in Okinawa along most of the Westerly coastlines in areas of population density one can see a large contingent of folks stopping in anticipation of the spectacle of the day. Taking up positions along seawalls, sitting on beaches or simply pulling to the side of the coastal roads. Time slows when people see the hues starting to change, when the sky starts to light up. Sunset for me as a photographer is a special time of day. I like to show the motion of the Ocean combined with the hues of the setting sun, it is a very fine line to walk and one that can so easily end in disappointment.
When many people buy their first set of ND’s they normally opt for the super ND’s, by that I mean those which reduce the amount of light entering the camera by a factor of six, ten or even fifteen times. Often referred to as ‘Big Stoppers’ they are characterised by their numerical titles of ND64, ND1000 and ND32000 respectively. These filters are especially handy for shooting in the midday sun when contrast is high, lending itself perfectly to Black and White rendered imagery.
Sunset photography however delivers a unique set of circumstances where the above mentioned filters server literally no purpose. In order to get a nice amount of motion in moving water my preferred shutter speed is 1.6sec. This allows the photographer to retain enough details of movement in the highlights without the whites getting overexposed. To accomplish this at sunset one only needs a very low neutral density factor to reduce the amount of light entering the camera to a much lesser degree as that offered by the ‘Big Stoppers’. I normally use a couple of filters given that extending the shutter when incorporating the setting sun in the shot will simply overexpose the area of direct sunlight and its immediate surrounding area. To mask that off I tend to favour the use of a graduated neutral density filter.
‘Grads’ come in varying options, some described as a Soft Grads, others as a Hard Grads and others as Reverse Grads. When to use one over the other depends on the horizon you have in front of you. If for simplicity sake you’re photographing the sun setting into the Ocean and you have obstructions on your horizon such as islands or elements of the coastline you would normally opt to use what is termed as a Soft Grad. These filters have a much more forgiving transition in their opaqueness given there is a larger transition area between the area of the filter that masks the areas of light and those which do not. On the flip side to that a Hard Grad with a much more defined line of opaqueness will be used when the horizon is unobstructed. A reverse filter is the filter one would use when photographing the setting sun with a clear horizon free of obstacles. It has an area of opaqueness designed to be positioned along the horizon so that is also masks out the immediate reflection area on the Ocean to reduce that from also becoming overexposed.
As the sun is setting the available light of the day also recedes. This in turn can be seen as Mother Nature’s own version of a neutral density filter. But therein lies the problem. There is only a certain amount of light. At sunset that available light is a commodity that dissipates at an alarming rate. There is, in my mind, a very small window of time to snag imagery of the setting sun and this tends to be around the immediate ten minutes before and after the sun has dipped below the horizon. Reinforced by the receding ambient light I’ve found that I can start imaging at around ten minutes prior to the sunset with a 4 stop or ND16 in conjunction with a Reverse ND1.2 on a clear horizon. This for me is the ideal setup to be able to hit a 1.6sec shutter at ISO100 using an aperture of around f11 on a 12mm prime lens. As the light fades more once the sun has set I then switch to a Reverse Grad0.6 with a 3 stop, ND8, filter to accomplish the same results albeit with an aperture opened to f8. I know that the imaging session has come to an end once I would start to raise the ISO beyond 200.
Your sunset photography will improve as you experiment with ND Filter use. The best thing is to simply get out there and see what works for you. I shoot to accomplish an aesthetic that pleases me. This should be the aim of every photographer. To shoot for an aesthetic that pleases them and not to shoot for something they believe best suits others tastes. Sunset photography is one aspect of imaging that has great appeal to the majority of people given our seemingly unified connection with the Ocean.
Camera Settings: ND16 with Reverse Grad0.9 at f11, ISO100 for 1.6sec.
Cheers,
Mark.
