Sunsets with digital camera

[gforster]

I just baought a new digital camera. Last night, i went out and shot a few pictures of a beautiful sunset - but I had a beig problem. Every picture I took, the colors were much paler than the actual brilliant sky. A few pics turned out OK, butnothing like what I wanted. The intensity of color and definition of the clouds just wasn't there. What am I doing wrong - or better yet, how do I take control of the camera instead of the little computer ships inside?

[danbachmann]

<a href="/gallery/Europe/Greece/photo13290.htm"><img src="/images/photos/650/oiasunsetship04c_s_.jpg" align="right" /></a>
The dynamic range of digital isn't as great as on slide film, which may be one factor, but even film doesn't easily show what we want. Here are a few things to make it work:
* under expose about 2 stops
* shoot in RAW mode if your camera can, so you can adjust the shadows
* if the sunset is of an even orange tint, you can enhance this with a (light gradual) sunset filter

Hope this helps,
Dan

[AdrianW]

Biggest thing - set your WhiteBalance (WB) manually. Auto WB is designed to make the colours in a scene neutrally balanced - not a good idea when you have a strongly coloured situation like a sunset ;)

For a sunset I'd set them to either sunny or cloudy myself, if you have the option - shoot RAW that way you can choose the setting later!

Underexposing may help, depending on the nature of the problem...