Go Long – and VIVID

Here we are on the edge of the big May Long Weekend – the great Canadian ritual where we welcome the arrival of summer with beaches, beer and bonfires! Three days of debauchery for some, for others 3 glorious (hopefully) days of outdoor photography. Or maybe a bit of both 🙂If you’re at the lake this weekend, you know sunsets will be remarkable shows of nature and you’ll want to capture them at their finest.  A few weeks ago I was mesmerized by this sunset. it looked like flames in the sky!  I stood on my upstairs deck and ripped off a few shots. In the LCD it didn’t look too great though, so I started changing the settings to see if I could capture what i saw!

Here’s my secret recipe for rockin’ sunset photos.

Set your camera on the Vivid Setting (if you’re a Nikon shooter), I’m not sure what it’s called on Canons or other DSLRs but it’s a standard shooting preset that pops the contrast and ups the hue and saturation just a bit.

Next, set your White balance for FLASH. You know a flash puts out a cold white light, so the WB setting for Flash compensates by increasing warmth and red tones.

When you take your exposure reading set it on centre-weighted and take the reading from the blue sky not directly at the sun.

Here are  examples of the same shot, one with a “normal standard setting” one with vivid, and the last one following the steps above.

 

 

So, this weekend when you’re enjoying the arrival of summer ( and believe me, I will be!), set up your camera well before sunset so you’ll be prepared.

Have a great long weekend, be sure to send me your sunset photos – use the Show off your Pics link on the main page menu or click here to get to the upload page.