Nothing beats stormy weather when it comes to shooting sunsets. The clouds in the sky make for dramatic images. The sunlight gets filtered through them and the sky often lights up in a blaze of color around sunset or sunrise for that matter.
We were having drinks with friends recently on my property in the high desert of Central Oregon when suddenly the sky erupted in a blaze of reds and orange. When this happens, I can’t just sit and enjoy — I have to shoot it.
I used my Nikon D600 camera with a 70 to 200mm lens. Shooting it in three horizontal images, one after another, I then used Photoshop to stitch them into one large file image. I usually have my camera shoot images in RAW so I can later process them just the way I want them. I set my color temperature manually — in this case at 5800 Kelvin. Daylight would be around 5200K, but here I wanted warmer colors. My ISO was set at 200 which is a good all around number. There is not much to say in terms of composition. Frame it so you concentrate on whats interesting. In this case, the clouds lit up in the sky. Crop off what ‘s boring like the dark land on the bottom and you got it. Sometimes Nature puts on such a show, all you really have to do is push the button.
The American West and my home state of Oregon really have great light so it is a pleasure to shoot, travel and live here.
