Haunting Sky

[Newt]

Hey guys. I rushed outside to take this picture on Halloween evening. It was really windy so I had to work quickly. I'm wondering if it's a good shot, but also if you think anything should be done to make it better in your eyes.



Samsung S630 (point and shoot)
6.0 Mega Pixels
Zoom 5.8 - 174mm

That's all I know as I'm new at this.
Also, when I transfered the picture to PhotoBucket it seems to have lost some of the editing I did. Namely, the bottom of the picture was a little darker. I don't know how to stop that from happening. Sorry.

[Newt]

So what I'm getting is that no one has anything to say about this photo? ...Anything at all will be helpful guys.

[Sterling]

I'm not sure what can be done to make this shot better but I will leave you with a few suggestions to make your next one better.

Sunsets are tough for point and shoots. It looks like this was a nice rich sunset in real life. But it hasn't really come through in this photo with the sky too bright and blown out. I suspect that you could actually make out the foreground objects with your eyes. Yet the camera has reduced them to silhouettes. I'm not familiar with your camera but these results are pretty typical for a P&S set on Auto.

You can use this knowledge to still produce some nice sunset shots though. If you know that the foreground is going to become black then shoot the sunset against an object that will make an interesting silhouette. This brings up a point regarding composition in sunset shots. They will almost always look better if you compose your shot with an interesting foreground. Shots of a colored sky alone will rarely look good.

Your camera may support more advanced functions that will make more things possible. For example, if you have a Manual mode you could adjust the shutter speed or aperture to make the image darker than your camera's Auto brain wants it to be. Making the sky above darker would really bring out the rich colors better. The bottom is already black so it won't get any "blacker."

You could also experiment with the camera's flash to light up close objects while still capturing the sunset in the background. Some cameras have a dedicated mode just for these kinds of shots.

Sorry if these ideas have been too basic but we need to start somewhere.

[Newt]

I really appreciate the tips and shall keep them in mind next time the mood takes me to capture a sunset. No one was responding, and I'll admit...It's slightly disheartening. So thank you.

That being said, I just want you to know that the bottom being dark and the trees as a silhouette are done purposely.

Also...the sky doesn't appear blown out to me, but perhaps I don't have as much of a working knowledge of the term "blown out" as I thought. Could someone define it for me? Thank you.

[Sterling]

Yes, I guess it hasn't technically blown out to white. But to me it looks like the brightness of the sky is obscurring the detailed, small tree branches. Maybe it just doesn't show well in this small size.