September 16, 2020
Sunset at Leo Carrillo
My colleague Hami asked if I'd like to drive over to Leo Carrillo to shoot the sunset. I drove over and ran into a traffic break about 5 miles east of the park, so I had to head back and take a different route over the mountains to get there. I arrived about 20 minutes prior to sunset and we set up below lifeguard station 3 where I've shot before. Shooting into the Sun can be difficult since it's very bright and when you shoot at an angle you risk getting sun flares. I took the exposure bracketing approach where I set the camera to shoot 5 exposures of different exposure lengths. This allows me to retain detail and color in both the bright areas around the Sun and in the dark shadows as well. I usually combine these shots using either the built-in HDR function in Lightroom or an external program(Aurora HDR) to combine these shots. These methods do a fine job, but do not allow for much control. With several of these shots I've taken a different tack, I'd find the bright area in one of the shots and selectively re-introduce them back into the shot in Photoshop. We waited for astronomical twilight to end to head back to the rocks to get some Milky Way shots.
Read MoreMy colleague Hami asked if I'd like to drive over to Leo Carrillo to shoot the sunset. I drove over and ran into a traffic break about 5 miles east of the park, so I had to head back and take a different route over the mountains to get there. I arrived about 20 minutes prior to sunset and we set up below lifeguard station 3 where I've shot before. Shooting into the Sun can be difficult since it's very bright and when you shoot at an angle you risk getting sun flares. I took the exposure bracketing approach where I set the camera to shoot 5 exposures of different exposure lengths. This allows me to retain detail and color in both the bright areas around the Sun and in the dark shadows as well. I usually combine these shots using either the built-in HDR function in Lightroom or an external program(Aurora HDR) to combine these shots. These methods do a fine job, but do not allow for much control. With several of these shots I've taken a different tack, I'd find the bright area in one of the shots and selectively re-introduce them back into the shot in Photoshop. We waited for astronomical twilight to end to head back to the rocks to get some Milky Way shots.
