Romantic Sunset Photo

Photographer’s Note

Romantic sunset in Ios, a beautiful Greek island with lots of sweet memories

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Raciti (619) 2005-10-13 10:00 [Comment]

Quentin (5278) 2005-10-13 11:54

Hi Leni
The point of view is beautiful but I think that you took
your photo just a bit to early. The sun was not enough down
and it makes your picture a bit overexposed. But it seems to a
really nice place.
Cheers
Quentin

haans_gruber (0) 2005-10-16 10:27

Hi Leni,

You'll have to either filter the sun in this type of shot (Circular Polarizer, or Neutral Density, or both), or preferably wait until the sun is a bit lower on the horizon. Rule of thumb is to keep the sun to your back, and not shoot directly into the sun, in most (but not all) cases this is true. A good test for the polarizer filter is put on polarized sunglasses, it makes for a close approximation of the filters effect on the photo minus the correction from white to blue that the brain makes and the camera does not.

If you do shoot into the sun, the bright sun light, reflection and over exposure result. The reason for this, is because blue light waves are shorter than red light waves, thus when the sun is overhead the shorter waves are scattered less by the air molecules, and very small dust and water particles. When they react with light waves passing by, they affect shorter (bluish colours) less than the longer yellow & red light waves. Which gives the sky the bluish colour during the daytime, and in this case too much light also, because the camera registers the bluish light in the white portion of the electromagnetic spectrum rather than blue (cyan) while your brain adjusts for your eye to see it as blue (cyan).

As the sun becomes lower on the horizon the light travels a greater distance, the light waves undergo more scattering, so the shorter waves are scattered and relatively few get through. Thus the longer yellow & red waves are predominate over the longer distance, giving you the redish, yellow colour of the skies. Making for a far more dramatic sun on the horizon photograph.

The details of the cliff along the shore and the boats could really be brought out well in this photograph if either had been the case.
You have a good eye for the things you want in your photo.
So, your compostion rates high.
Just a tiny bit of tweaking on your technique is all I think you need.

Good job, and keep up the good work.

peace,

haans :)