Sunset Photography Settings

[Yaprak]

What are the best settings for successful sunset photography? Let's say I set my aperture to f16; what should be the best shutter speed for it to have a nice dramatic effect and capture sharp silhouettes; should we do a slow shutter speed such as somewhere between 18 - 26?? I would appreciate if you could share your experience. Thank you.

[zona5101]

The shutter speed is going to depend on a couple of things besides your fstop...your iso and the actual amount of available light. One thing you will need to keep in mind is your camera meter is trying to make the world a nice even medium grey. How much skyline vs how much terrain you place in the picture will influence your meter therefore you will need to tell your camera what to do by either shooting in manual or using your exposure compensation. In the attached photo, the shutter speed is 1/60 at f9.5 (iso200) set manually. Letting my camera pick the exposure would have resulting in the sky being very much brighter and I would have muted colors at best. I did not record the ambient camera reading but I would venture to guess I am underexposing by 1 ½-2 stops. Had this shot not included fill flash, the subject would have been silhouetted.