A perennial favorite, yet most often snagged only as someone notices them and not as much planned for, so let’s do a little planning.
Know your times. There are a million ways to know when sunrise and sunset are going to occur, but there are two primary things to consider. The first is, any source that doesn’t calculate your actual position (i.e., know where you are) is likely to be off to some extent, so apps or online sources that ask for your location are best. The second is, astronomical rise/set times can be fudged, even with a precise location, by two things: a horizon that it not right at the Earth’s edge, like trees or hills, and atmospheric distortion, which can actually make the sun appear better than its own width away from the actual position. So never count on to-the-second precision, and be ready early.
There are two nature photography terms: the golden hour and the blue hour, both applying to sunset and sunrise conditions – neither are an hour long, by the way. The golden hour refers to the periods while the sun is still up but getting colored by the thicker atmosphere near the horizon, typically about 45 minutes, while the blue hour refers to when the sun is below it, and tends to be much shorter at about 15-20 minutes. Both provide useful color casts for subjects, though we tend to favor the golden hour more, especially for people.
Know the position. The sun and moon arc across the sky and shift throughout the year, touching the horizon in a different place every day (technically, the same spots twice a year save for two particular days when it’s only once a year – I’ll let you figure out what those are.) Knowing where this will be means you have the ability to use the next tip.
This also means knowing compass bearings, especially for plotting where the sun will break the horizon at sunrise, and there’s no real substitute for an actual compass – one that allows directional sighting is best, but you don’t have to go too expensive. What you do need to know is magnetic declination, because magnetic north is not true north for just about everyplace on the globe, and the compass will need a slight adjustment to plot true north (and perhaps again if you travel far enough.) I’ve used smutphone apps for compass headings and these are wildly variable, dependent on whether or not the phone manufacturer actually included a magnetic compass function in the first place – if not, the app will attempt this through GPS and the bearing can be way off, even wandering around while the phone is motionless. But failing these, good mapping software will allow you to plot a compass line and perhaps line it up with some landmarks.
Plan and plot your composition. You have the ability to put the sun (or moon) right in the middle of something at times – rising right behind a building or down the line of the street, alongside the lighthouse or just off the mountain peak, whatever. This means either specific timing during the year, or placing yourself in an ideal spot that the composition falls together. It becomes worth it if you produce that unique frame where everything works.
Clear days actually work against you. A bright yellow sun breaking the horizon, with just a haze-colored sky, is boring, and where I used to live in central NC, this was surprisingly typical. It also means the sun will be unbearably bright just a short ways from the horizon itself. Clouds add the drama, and the colors, and the textures – being just a bit away from a storm is what makes the really complicated skies and layers and so on. Usually, just after a storm for sunsets, but perhaps well after a storm (several hours) for sunrises. Fronts moving through, barometric pressure changing – these are the things that contribute mightily to how the sky will look, and change the sun from yellow to orange or blood red, while the clouds get the reds, pinks, purples, and slate blues in the shadows.
Atmospheric particulate matter can also help. This means smoke – timely right at the moment – ash (from volcanoes) or even sand. If there are wildfires to the west of you, start watching the sunsets, and if it gets thick enough, you might even get something at midday. Stay safe though, and don’t even bother if the air quality is really bad – no pic is worth it.
Bracket exposures. Take several frames of the best compositions, both over- and under-exposed by 1/3 stop at a time, so one frame right where the camera’s light meter says is ‘proper,’ than 1/3, 2/3, and one full stop over-exposed, and also 1/3, 2/3, and one full stop under-exposed. In this way, you bring out the subtleties of the cloud colors or deeper shadows. Exposure is going to depend on what metering setting you’re using and where, exactly, you’re aiming in the sky – a subtle twitch of the camera in algorithm-controlled metering can change the exposure significantly, and there’s no way to describe how to handle every situation, so just bracket. Over-exposure tends to wash out the saturation of the colors, but if you’re metering close to a bright visible sun, you may need this to bring out the cloud colors rather than letting them descend into being too dark.
Things change very rapidly. If you see the sky doing great things and aren’t in position to take advantage of it, it’s probably too late – by the time you get to someplace photogenic or even go into the house to get the camera, the sky will have changed. Occasionally, a small break in the clouds someplace out of sight over the horizon will let the sunlight play through in amazing ways, but this may last 10-30 seconds.
To that end:
Don’t abandon that location or subject too quickly. An overcast sky and no visible sun isn’t always a luckless day – those breaks in the cloud cover can occur many kilometers away out of sight, and suddenly the light comes through and illuminates the undersides of the clouds with a dazzling light show – this might occur up to ten minutes past astronomical sunset (or, ten before sunrise.) It doesn’t happen often, but just be ready.
Plan ahead a little. So, you waited out the sunset, despite the overcast, and now you have to head back home. In the dark. Just be aware of how you got there and the need to see the trails or even just decent footing. The same goes for being on location for sunrise – you might not think you need the headlamp for sunrise and set shoots, but that’s why you’re now thinking it all the way through.
Crepuscular rays. The technical term for sunrays, these require a decent amount of humidity, and something to block portions of the sunlight to cast shadows through it. Most dependable where this ‘something’ is in the landscape, like mountains, but can occur anywhere, from just about anything, most often clouds. Between their movement and the sun’s own, they may not last more than a couple of minutes, sometimes as brief as 30 seconds. Besides bracketing exposure, if you have the time, playing around with the contrast settings isn’t a bad idea either, and metering from the sky right where they are can help a bit.
Don’t ignore the opposite direction. We tend to focus on where the sun is, so always look around every few minutes, because the sky behind you might be doing fabulous things. This is also where you can get the Belt of Venus, and cool moon rises or sets, and subjects illuminated by the great twilight coloration. In fact, if you’re doing portraits or family photos or even just cool seaside towns, you may get much better compositions this way than watching what the sun is doing. Also be aware, rainbows occur opposite the sun.
Backlighting. When the sun’s down nice and low, this is a great time to see what things look like with either some nice sharp light, or a colorful sky, showing through and behind them, and there are lots of different subjects to do this with. Again, exposure is occasionally tricky, so bracket a bit. But also pay attention to diffraction effects from moisture or spiderwebs – dewy or misty mornings are great times to approach this technique, while the light is highlighting everything distinctly.
You don’t need to go wide. Just because the entire sky isn’t putting on a dazzling display doesn’t mean you won’t have something to work with. Sometimes, there’s just one little patch that works, and isolating that can make great frames. Don’t neglect the reflections in the water, either. And this is where the wildlife can work, as you follow birds until they cross that one great patch of sky or water, or simply silhouette them against the yellow glow even when the sky itself is boring. Don’t ignore the glitter trails either, those bands of rippling water that reflect the higher sun in thousands of little points – this is exactly where that small aperture will produce little pointed starbursts. And then again, a wide-open aperture, unfocused on the glitter, will produce hundreds of hazy background orbs instead.
Foreground subjects. These are pretty tricky, and the general rule is, don’t count on being able to capture them distinctly. Having an exposure that makes the sky look fabulous often means that anything in the foreground is under-exposed significantly, often to the point of silhouetting – it’s backlit, after all, and often the ambient light levels are now quite a bit lower. With extreme luck you might have a towering cloud bank opposite the sun that bounces a little light to the shady side of things, or you can use a reflector for smaller subjects, but for the most part, you’re not going to see much and still have good sky colors. This is where people often resort to High Dynamic Range (HDR) functions or editing, combining exposures aimed at the sky and then at the foreground, but these are usually widely disparate and the results frequently look fake as hell, especially to anyone with a modicum of experience. Using a fill-flash can occasionally work, but typically this means your foreground subject is illuminated by white light while everything else is yellow, orange, pink, whatever – again, fake looking (and why a reflector works much better.) You can put an appropriate gel over your flash, and if you’re doing portraiture, this is practically a necessity, but overall, don’t plan on foreground details and good exposure.
The green flash. This is a phenomenon where, just as the barest vestige of sun is right on the horizon, the atmospheric distortion changes it to brilliant green – it generally requires pretty clear conditions and the right level of humidity. Most people chase this at sunset, since you can follow the sun going down, and this means a good westerly view right to the horizon at sunset – meaning, west coast or gulf coast of Florida, for the continental US. But you can also accomplish this at sunrise, too, so east coast denizens aren’t out of luck; it’s just that, you have to be ready exactly at visual sunrise, or you’ll miss it.
This is a little easier than it sounds, even with the caveat above about not trusting plotted sunrise times. The horizon will glow with the approaching sun, perhaps even providing a sun pillar, and the glow will become extremely pronounced within thirty seconds of sunrise – if the sky’s clear enough, you’ll know it. Be aimed and ready, eye to the viewfinder and finger on the shutter (firm tripod of course,) and you can catch it. Of course, it’s much easier with video.
If the sun isn’t too dogawful bright by then, there’s also a magenta flash as it loses contact with the horizon, but don’t go blind or damage your sensor concentrating on this one.
You can also refer to this compositional post on sunrises and sunsets – some duplicate info in there of course, but several additions that I haven’t included in this one.
So there you have it: everything you need to know* to get great sunrise and sunset images. Good luck!
* Not everything you need to know. But a lot.
Meanwhile, the same sequence is more of a funky dance when the delay between frames is shortened – the initial animation was with a delay even shorter than this, which is what convinced me you needed to see it faster. Feel free to set it against the music of your choice.
