Sunset/Sunset questions

[kahunaben]

1) How do you shoot a sunset or sunrise when the sun is above the horizon? I don't want to go blind composing the shot!!!

2) Will shooting a shot like this damage the sensor of a DSLR?

Thanks in advance!

Kahunaben

[Saralonde]

First of all, don't aim directly at the sun. It will throw your camera's metering off. Sometimes waiting just a little while will get the sun in a slightly better position, where you have a glow of light rather than a bright one. Here is an article on the DPS blog on photographing sunrises and sunsets.

[RexK_Cozumel]

no it will not damage the sensor. however it might make you blind. If you have a grad ND filter that is very useful for sunset/sunrise pictures. Composition wise frame the sun on a third line. Sometimes it is good to put the sun ion the middle of the frame but I only do that when there is some other point of interest that I want on a third line. (interesting cloud formations, foregrounds, etc.)

[mountaintreker]

It all depends on what you want to do with a sunset. When you meter for a sunset meter off of the sky to the left or the right of the sun never into the sun. This will place the exposure emphasis on the sky and your foreground will most likely go black. If you have a nice silhouette subject and a colorful sky you will have a nice image. Another option is if you want to retain foreground detail you could always bracket your exposures under and over exposing the sky and the foreground with detail in each. Then you could take those images to your photo editor and blend them together. Photoshop can blend images taking a properly exposed sky and blending it with a properly exposed foreground or you can try your hand at HDR if you have the software. As others have said wait a little while for a better sun position. Usually waiting for the sun to drop down behind the horizon may give you the reddish orange sky that so many of us are accustomed to seeing in dynamic sunsets images. When you meter for your colorful sky try spot metering so that you get a more concentrated area for your meter reading and you don't include any area that may throw off your sky reading. If you must have the sun in your image try hiding it behind your silhouette to help from having such a large blown highlight. If the sun is not hidden behind something it maybe too bright and distract from the image.

Mountaintreker