How can you tell WHEN a sunset will be good?

[navcom]

Exposure: I find I usually under-expose by a stop or two depending on the composition. I use ND grads regularly so that plays into it as well.

ND filters: non-graduated ND filters act like stopping down your lens. Their most popular use is making the camera require a longer shutter speed to get a proper exposure. A common use for ND filters is getting waterfalls or streams to look silky. It will slow down the camera allowing anything that is moving to blur...all during daylight hours.

ND grads: A must for landscape photographers. They act like a normal ND filter but only darken a portion of the image. These are used to "push back" the brighness of the sun or sky so that the foreground isn't under-exposed.

Sunset filters: I have a set but I don't use them too often. They work well if they are used sparingly. Too much and it will look fake. As for cheating....well...using this criteria, the use of any filter would constitute cheating as would any post-processing such as dodging/burning in a dark room with film or using Photoshop for digital. It's all relative. If you are a purist, it's cheating. If you are creating art, it's a tool.

I tend to fall in the latter camp....it's not cheating to me...it's creating. Photography is like painting; you are creating a scene that expresses what you want to share. With painting, you use oils. With photography, you use light. Painters use different brushes and knives to get the effects they want in their work. Photographers use filters and post-processing to create their art.

Painters don't always create photo-realistic images. Sometimes they paint abstract or impressionist images. Many times these are more dramatic than photo-realistic images and invoke more from the image. Photographers sometimes depart from reality to make a point in their work as well. It's all good.

[dakwegmo]

Here's another free resource for sunrise, and sunset times: Free software for landscape photographers | PhotoNaturalist

It can be very difficult to tell an hour or two before if a sunset will be good (even tougher for sunrises), especially if you aren't in the general neighborhood of where you want to shoot it. Where I live, a difference of 10 miles can give you dramatic differences in weather conditions, so a lot of is just luck. One thing that I have noticed though, is that high clouds, especially if there's plenty of space between them often produce great color. When the sun gets low, and illuminates the clouds from below, or bounces between the different layers of clouds, it usually has spectacular effect.

[Elmo]

Another "filtered" sunset. (Grad filter)

[mseigafuse]

Originally Posted by Elmo

Another "filtered" sunset. (Grad filter)

Nice shot and sweet looking car

[pppphotography]

To get a good photo of a sunset is half studying the sky an hour before and half GOOD LUCK. A good and colorful Sunset begins with, a good quantity of various formation of clouds. You can check this looking at the sky 1-1/2 before the sunset. Remember to check your local weather info for the exact sunset on your location. But that's not all, be sure at the moment of the shot that the clouds are located on top of the sun, not in front of it, so you can take the shot with the sun in the scene.
The last, but not least important, remember to shoot in RAW. In the post processing you can saturate a little or add a filter effect to "impact" your image, but with one thing in mind: "Less is More"

Here you have an example of a sunset photo captured at Puerto Rico. One interesting thing, is that I took it on the east side of the Island (Fajardo, PR) with the objective at the west, of course. So, no matter where you at, your results can be stunning.



Canon XTI in RAW mode
28-135 IS USM

I hope this could help.

pppphotography@gmail.com

Flickr: PPP Photography's Photostream

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Canon XTI & BG-E3, Canon 5DMKII & BG-E6
18-55mm 3.5-5.6 / 50mm 1.8 / 28-135 IS USM / 70-300mm IS USM / 70-200mm 2.8L IS USM
430EZ Speedlite / 550EX Speedlite / (2)580EX II Speedlite / ST-E2 Transmitter

[rskor109]

A great program and it's free.
stephentrainor.com: tools
Will tell you position of sun and moon throughout the day for any location.

[Silverz]

One thing I have noticed is you can usually get nice sunsets when there is only a few clouds and they are quite high up in the sky.

Other than that it is just luck and patience as to weather or not the result is good.

[Algernon]

A couple of people have already pointed you to websites with sunset times and details, so I'd just like to point out that if you're using a compass, make sure to compensate for magnetic north. The difference can be unexpectedly large, depending on where you live.

I'd also say to watch for high cloud cover with a visible horizon to the west. I almost always run out with my camera under these conditions because the sun will briefly become visible under the cloud cover and shine pinks and reds on the underside of the clouds, transforming the entire sky. I haven't yet seen a bad sunset under those conditions.

[navcom]

Originally Posted by Algernon

A couple of people have already pointed you to websites with sunset times and details, so I'd just like to point out that if you're using a compass, make sure to compensate for magnetic north. The difference can be unexpectedly large, depending on where you live.

I'd also say to watch for high cloud cover with a visible horizon to the west. I almost always run out with my camera under these conditions because the sun will briefly become visible under the cloud cover and shine pinks and reds on the underside of the clouds, transforming the entire sky. I haven't yet seen a bad sunset under those conditions.

Good point about using a compass. Maps point towards true north...that is, where the exact top of the globe is. But the magnetic north pole...that point where a compass will point to is not exactly at the north pole but is in fact ever-so-slowly moving around up there. Here in Minnesota where I live, magnetic north is only a couple degrees off from north on a map, but it can be off quite a bit in other areas. In Seattle for instance, it's off by about 18 degrees and in Anchorage, Alaska, it is off by about 22 degrees.

Also, there are areas that experience magnetic disturbances. Along Lake Superior's north shore in Minnesota, there are areas where your compass will just go funny and not be accurate because of this. It's mostly because of the vast amounts of iron ore and taconite in the ground. If you are not aware of this, you can get screwed up real fast.

[canonrt]

Mike, I so agree with you! There is no such thing as cheating! You use whatever tool you want to get any effect that you want! The only filters I use are the UV for lens protection & a Polarizing filter in bright sun. Thats it! I could get any result I want in Photo Shop!