5 steps to better sunrise and sunset photos by Chris Nicholson

One look through this website will make clear that I love making sunrise and sunset pictures. Most photographers do.

Here are five considerations to making great photos of sunrises and sunsets:

1. Meter carefully—then throw out the reading

Many beginning photographers are disappointed with their photos of sunrises and sunsets because they let the camera do the metering. Big mistake. The burning ball of fire in the middle (or, rather, on the two-thirds rule line) of a photo will throw off any built-in camera meter.

To meter this Florida sunset, I spot-metered off the clouds in the center of the frame, just over the couple's head. Nikon F5, Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8. More Sunrise, Sunset pictures.

Your best bet for determining the exposure for a sunrise or sunset is to spot-meter off a medium-toned area of the sky, close to where the light sky falls into dark. Then bracket by about as much as two stops in either direction. Often I’ll bracket 2/3 and 1-1/3 stop in either direction, and end up keeping four of the five exposures.

If you don’t have a spot meter, then frame the sky just next to the sun, but do not include the sun in the frame. Get a light reading from that, set the camera, then move the sun back in the frame. Again, bracket to two stops in either direction.

Another important point: When framing and taking light readings, never look directly at the sun through your camera’s viewfinder. Your lens, especially if it’s telephoto, will magnify the damaging effects of the sun on your eye.

2. Shoot more than the sun

Usually a photo of just the sun on the horizon will not make a sufficiently interesting photograph. So look for something else to liven it up.

Clouds are a great place to start. A rising or setting sun will throw light upwards onto the bottom of clouds, which can create some startling effects of color. Look for patterns in the clouds that can nicely complement a landscape.

What makes this tree and sunset photo work is the clouds being lit from below by the setting sun, creating a marble look to the sky. Nikon F5, Nikkor 300mm f/2.8 with Nikkor TC14E teleconverter. More Smoky Mountains pictures.

Another option is to silhouette something in the foreground. Try animals, or trees, or people, or anything. To achieve a silhouette, just photograph the sunset at your chosen exposure, and anything in front of it in the frame will appear almost, if not completely, black.

3. Know where the sun will be

Ask people where the sun sets and almost every one of them will say: “West.” For most of the year, they’ll be wrong.

Aside from the vernal equinox (mid-March) and autumnal equinox (mid-September), the sun does not set due west. Its position on the horizon at either sunrise or sunset will vary depending on the time of year and your location on the planet.

Knowing where the sun rises or sets is important if you want to scout a location and pick your best angles beforehand. For more information on this, read my article “How to determine sunset & sunrise times and locations.”

4. Use a tripod

I’d say this for any photo taken at any time of day, but I’ll stress it for sunrise and sunset shots. Especially if you’re silhouetting a foreground element, you’ll most likely want a good amount of depth of field (blurry-edged suns rarely work; blurry-edge silhouettes never do), which means stopping down to slow shutter speeds. Despite claims by some people with cameras, I guarantee that you’ll improve the sharpness of your sunset photos by using a tripod.

New York City skyline sunset. Nikon F5, Tamron 300mm f/2.8. More Scenery Landscape pictures.

5. Pace yourself

The colors of a sunrise or sunset change dramatically over the course of the event. So be prepared to try angles over and over with different skies. If you’re working one angle, get your shots, then wait ten minutes and you may get some more with very different results.

More often than not, the colors of a sunset grow warmer as the sun approaches the horizon; the opposite happens for sunrises (colors grow cooler as the sun climbs into the sky). For more on determining and manipulating sun colors, read “Predicting and manipulating colors at sunrise or sunset.”