Sunrise photographs.

Sunrise or sunset photography is tricky, but it can be amazingly rewarding. The range of colors that the sky and the sun will sweep through in a few short minutes offers a great deal to the attentive photographer. This blog is actually a result of a response to someone's request on Flickr.

Tips:
1. Given a bright object, the camera's internal engine tends to think 'this is way tooo bright, I need to underexpose' and hence renders much of the image too dark. I suggest taking a few pictures at different exposure settings to find what setting is decent and offers the best picture in terms of hue. This picture 'Bhor' was underexposed by 1.3 stops. It is a good idea to keep fraction stops available. See your camera's manual for this.

2. Use a deep field. An aperture opening like f8-f11 is what I find best. Everything is in focus from, say palm trees in the foreground to the horizon.

3. Use spot metering. My camera offers three types of metering: Full frame, centre weighted and spot. The meanings are quite obvious: full frame is fine for regular sunlight conditions, centre weighted is what you should use when you find yourself recomposing shots having half-stopped to autofocus on someone's face and then reframing. Spot metering gathers light from a point in the frame and calibrates exposure level with that point. This is tricky. If you half stop with the spot in the middle of the solar disc, the rest of the frame will be dark. If you half stop on a dark cloud, everything will be washed out. The trick is to half stop on whatever you want to be the primary focus of the picture and then check different exposures and see what that does to the picture.

4. Silhouettes are good subjects. Finding the right spot to frame the perfect picture is important.

5. Look for small objects, perhaps a seashell, or a small bird.. these can be nice subjects. You may not be lucky enough to find a sailboat perfectly silhouetted against the setting sun.. but there are always nice subjects to look for. Have fun taking great sunrise and sunset pictures.