If you’ve always wanted to take amazing sunset photos, then here are three great tips that can help.  These are practical tips you can start using right away so you’ll be taking beautiful sunsets before you know it.

Tip #1: Never Look Directly at the Sun

This may seem like a rule you learned in kindergarten, but it’s important that you never look directly at the full sun or aim your camera at it. This can damage your camera’s image sensor and leave you with a very expensive repair. So, always wait until the sun is sinking below the horizon or wait until it is a dark red color.

Photo by Phil William

Tip #2:  Getting the True Color

With sunsets, it can often be tricky getting the true color of the sunset to come out in your photograph. Often times, that’s because the camera’s automatic white balance tones down the bright colors to make them appear more “normal.” So, here is what you need to do:

• If you have a camera with a manual setting, you need to turn off the automatic white balance and then set it to the warm side.
• If you have a camera with a color lens setting, or you have a SLR or DSLR, try using the red filter setting or attach one.
• If you have a compact camera, then set your camera to the “sunset” mode. This will shift the color balance to the warmer side and help it use the best focus and exposure.
• If your camera is none of the above, then use the “landscape” mode or “automatic” setting and use a photo editor to adjust the white balance manually.

Tip #3: Composition is Key

Really stunning sunset pictures require good composition, a lot of patience and a little luck. The most important of the three is most definitely composition. If you’re familiar with classical photography composition techniques like the “rule of thirds” then you want to put this knowledge into practice. If you’re new to photography, then here are a few tips for composing pictures (more late in a future post):

• Look for distracting elements in the viewfinder or screen that could detract from the sunset. This could be a building in the way, power lines, tree branches, people – anything that takes away from the picture and looks out of place.
• Identify the main focus of your sunset picture and have that take up 2/3 of the picture. For example if the main focus of your picture is the sky, then have the sky take up 2/3 of the frame of the picture.
• Look for elements that add interest to your picture. This could be a silhouette of a palm tree, a person walking on the beach, a rocky outcropping to help frame the image or a reflection off the water.

In addition to these tips on composition, patience is always an important factor when taking pictures. Sometimes our initial response is to immediately start taking pictures, but sometimes sunsets actually get more beautiful as the sun drops. So, take some pictures at first, but be willing to wait a little bit for the truly outstanding picture. And the last thing, is to make sure you’re starting out with a good setting. Sometimes by changing your position or location it can be the difference between a nice picture and an extraordinary one. The best location for sunsets is often places over water like the beach or even places like the desert or prairie where the dust in the air can add some amazing color to the sunset.

Hopefully these three tips will help you take even better sunset pictures.

Thank you to Phil Williams for the use of his photo:

Learning how to compose your photographs can mean the difference between a so-so snapshot and a high quality picture. Hopefully, you’ll find these composition tips helpful for taking digital pictures.

Filling the Frame & Clearing Clutter

There are exceptions to this as you’ll see in a second, but generally filling the frame is one of the easiest things you can do to compose interesting photographs.

One of the most common mistakes is to include too much in the photo and end up with a ho-hum photo where nothing really stands out.

For example, if you’re taking a picture of your child on a swing in the backyard, fill the frame with your child  and leave out the rest of the swing set and the other kids doing cartwheels on the lawn.  Otherwise your child will be lost in the clutter and the picture won’t capture the wonderful details of your child’s gleeful flight through the air on their swing.

A nice thing about digital cameras is that after you take the picture you can check for clutter in playback mode. Right away when there’s time for a retake you can see if something looks bad or if there is something like a stray piece of litter on the ground or a lamp post that appears to be growing out of some one’s head.

Sometimes leaving lots of empty space in the photo also works very well. Something like a meadow might fill two thirds of the photo for effect. Just be sure to get a close enough shot that your subject fills at least about a third of the frame. And that brings us to another important tip….

Rule of Thirds

Most snapshots have empty (or cluttered) space on either side of the subject, with the subject dead center. This makes sense because most people use digital compacts and they’re usually in autofocus mode with a center-weighted focus.

Professionally taken pictures rarely have the subject centered in the middle because they use manual focus and use classic composition methods. If you have a digital SLR (DSLR) you can manually focus too (we’ll even look at a way for some digital compact users can use).

The “Rule of Thirds” is one of the most popular classic composition methods used in the world of art. With this method, the photographer imagines six evenly spaced lines breaking the image into nine even parts.  Some cameras have a tic tac toe grid superimposed over your image in preview mode but if yours doesn’t you’ll have to imagine it.  Using this grid, frame the composition so that the subject (whether in individual, family, object, etc.) is on one of the intersections or on one of the lines.

This may seem tricky at first but with a little practice it becomes second nature.

Focus

Now lets first talk about getting your subject focused without placing them in the dead center of your frame.

This method works like a charm for subjects that are still. Here’s what you do:

1. Using the viewfinder’s focus point, move the camera until your subject is in the middle of the frame, and press the shutter release button half way down.
2. Wait for the green light to glow steadily signifying your focus is locked
3. Keeping your finger on the shutter release button so it remains pressed only half way, move the camera until you have the composition you want.
4. Holding the camera steady, press the shutter the rest of the way.
5. As always, wait for the green light to signal the camera’s captured the shot.

Remember to always focus on the main point of interest in your photo. And when you’re photographing people or animals, that usually means you want to focus on their eyes because that’s where people naturally look first.

And anytime you’re focusing on a subject in your picture, look for a unique angle. This could mean taking the picture while standing on a chair or lying on the ground- whatever gives you a unique vantage point that captures the subject best.

That’s it for now! Start using these tips and before long you’ll be getting all kinds of compliments on your well composed pictures hanging on the wall.

If you love taking pictures but always struggle when taking group or family photos, here are a four tips that can help you.

Avoid the “Police Line Up”

Instead of having everyone line up shoulder to shoulder, try something more natural looking and stagger the people in the picture.  For example, you might stagger your family members on the front steps of a porch or on and around boulders near a pond. You should also have some family members standing and others sitting to have varying degrees of height in the picture. By using a staggered pattern this also helps squeeze in more people if you have a large photo to take.

You should also try to avoid having everyone face their bodies directly at the camera.  Instead, have there bodies angled slightly and their heads looking directly at the camera. The simple trick of having the individuals at an angle in the picture will help improve the look of your portraits significantly as it’s a common technique used by most professional photographers.

Show Relationships

You can do this with the placement and proximity of the people in the picture. Show family togetherness by spacing relatives close together. And for large group pictures,  place couples, siblings or families together in the picture. For example, Grandma and Grandpa might stand next to each, a toddler could be in Mother’s arms, two siblings might have arms slung over each others shoulders. This will not only show the family relationship by grouping immediate family members next to each other but having them stand close to each will also help represent the closeness of the family.

You may also want to consider adding the family pet if they’re calm and will hold still long enough. If you have animals in a picture make sure to raise your shutter speed priority to 1/125 because even the smallest movements will be blurry.

Have the Picture Be Personal

Often family portraits or group photos don’t turn out very good because everyone in the photo looks unnatural. So, your job is to get everyone in the picture to relax enough where they look natural. One way is to use props of something that represents the family or that the family loves doing together. For example, if a family is into baseball you could have each member of the family hold a mitt, ball or bat. Or, if there is a special place the family spends a lot of time like a park or backyard this will also lighten up the mood of the picture.

You also want everyone to get rid of the forced smiles and “frozen” looking bodies. This may be tricky but if you’re good at telling jokes or telling a story this will help lighten the mood. The goal is to distract them enough so they’re smiling naturally. And once you’ve got the smiles and pose you want, tell them when you’re going to take the picture and give them a signal so they know you’re taking the shot.

Lighting

Lighting in a picture may seem like a minor point, but it can “make or break” your shot. Nothing is worse than having everyone posing perfectly and the lighting is bad and the picture turns out too dark or too bright. So, before you start positioning everyone for the picture, know if the lighting will be appropriate for the camera you have. For example, if your camera has a built in flash and you’re inside in a poorly lit room, you may need to find a different location. If you have a built in flash, the best lighting you can get is by going outside.

Outdoors lighting is almost always preferred because it gives more natural tones. And, if you decide to go outdoors avoid taking photos during mid-day as the shadows will be too harsh. The best outdoor light is an overcast or cloudy day or an hour before sunset and after dawn. If this isn’t possible for your group photo then find some shade outdoors that isn’t too dark.

Hopefully these four tips will help you the next time you need to take a family or group picture. Have fun taking pictures and don’t forget to frame them!