Not Too Many Clouds - Just Another Orange Sunset

But, add something interesting in the foreground, like a tree, and things turn out quite nice.

When I looked at the setting sun tonight, I could see that there weren't very many clouds. But there were several contrails. I usually like the contrails, even though they are obviously not natural - we all know just what they are. I find them to add a very nice little detail. And, the sky was turning nice and orange. So, I decided to give it a go. I settled on a couple of trees, and spent my time working around them.

These three shots show that even for just a plain orange sunset, with a little help from a tree, the results are pretty nice. A like these a quite a bit. They show that you can get quite a different look to things just by positioning the foreground objects a little differently.



You know, it always seems to amaze me that even when shooting directly at the full sun, there can be enough detail in the shot to make it interesting. I always like the big orange (or is it just white??) ball.



And in this shot, there is enough sky showing to reveal that it really is blue up higher, and that the orange is quite low. There is just enough of hint of the sun to create the nice bright spot.

Railroad Bridge at Sundown!!

Sounds like a Western movie title, huh?

Tonight I thought I'd try a new subject - one that I've been intending to shoot for a quite a while now. It wasn't a super-splendid sunset, but as I was checking the sky as sundown was approaching, I did notice some wispy clouds off to the West. So, I headed for this bridge which is located just North of Coolidge, AZ.

The following shot was taken with the Canon EOS Rebel xsi. To help enhance the red's and orange's of the sunset, I set the white balance for 'shade.'



After it started getting dark, I thought I'd try for some more 'star' shots. I don't know how well these next two are going look, being so small here, but I hope that you can see the stars. (Try clicking on the picture to make it a little bigger.) I'm located toward the North end of the bridge for this shot, looking South. The glow at the horizon is from the lights of Coolidge, which by the way, I had to hide behind that bush so they wouldn't be too bright.



And finally, I really like this next shot. I'm looking up a hill at the cactus. The orange glow is from the lights of Phoenix (about 30 miles away) shining on those wispy little clouds I mentioned earlier.

Change What To Focus On & Zoom In

Today, Friday, was just another 'orange' sunrise and another 'orange' sunset. So, I didn't shoot anything today. But, yesterday provided a couple of opportunities. As I was leaving for work, I thought that it was going to be just a plain old 'orange' sunrise, but I decided to drive into one of the cul-de-sacs and take a look. And, lo and behold, there were a few clouds. So, I jumped out of the car to take the shots below.

It may be a little hard for you to tell from these small images, but I decided to change what the camera was focused on. (If you click on the images, you can see them a little bigger.) With the camera (this was using my Fujifilm) set for its automatic 'sunset' mode, it automatically focuses on what it wants to focus on. After taking the shot, I could tell that it had focused on the branches, leaving the clouds a little out of focus.



But, what if you wanted the clouds to be more in focus, and the branches to be softer. One of the tricks you can do if the overall lighting of your subject is uniform, is to point the camera at the something else that you want it to focus on, press the shutter button halfway down and hold it there, and then re-frame the picture to position your desired objects into the frame. Then, press the shutter button the rest of the way. But, when shooting something kinda bright (like the sun!!!), if you aim at something else to get the camera to focus, in this case, at infinity, it will also lock in the exposure based upon what you currently have in the frame. And, then when you reposition so as to bring the sun back into the picture, it will end up being badly over exposed. So, for the following shot, all I did was to step to the side so that the tree limbs were no longer in the center of the frame, kept the sun centered, and let the camera focus and adjust the exposure, and then stepped back to the side to reposition the tree limbs where I wanted them. So, in this shot, the limbs are out of focus, and the clouds are sharp. Notice that the two exposures are the same.



And, that brings me to last night. I was still in town as the sun went down, instead of arriving back at home. I have pulled over at this same spot several times, and each time I have gotten completely different results. As you can see from the shot below, it looked like just another 'orange' sunset. The colors aren't too bad - I like the darker sky up high.



But, just zoom in and the world looks completely different! The difference here is that the above image was shot fully zoomed out, and the one below, fully zoomed in. Again, my Fujifilm FinePix S8000fd sports an 18x optical zoom. You can see what an awesome difference this makes. And, I really do like Palm Tree silhouettes.



And, one final issue -- image stabilization is a must when zoomed in this much. Otherwise you can't possibly hold the camera still enough (without stopping to set up a tripod - and did I mention that I had just pulled over to the side of the road?) to keep the image from getting all blurred. I have found the image stabilization of the FinePix to be outstanding. I'm just standing there, teetering back and forth, taking shots, and they all come out looking like the camera was on a tripod.

On the Drive Home - Radials, Trees and Bird!

Radials!!
Tonight wasn't especially wonderful. The skys had been almost completely clear all day long. But, as I headed home, I noticed that there were a few clouds in the West. I knew that the sun would be setting at about the same time that I arrived home. So, I did pull over and take a few shots. The first picture below, shows an effect that I frequently get when the sun is directly present in the frame -- radials. Usually these would be caused by the leaves of the iris in the leanse - one radial per leaf. As I count them in this shot, I see ten of them. But, I don't know how many leaves the iris of the Fujifilm camera has. Ten, maybe? A common way of also getting this effect is to use a 'star' filter in front of the lense. But, I am not doing that.



Look for something to use!!!
In this next shot, you would find me keeping my eyes open as I drive along, looking for a tree, a cactus, a building, or anything else to put into the foreground. I just happen to really love old dead-looking trees. I think they make great silouhettes. In this next picture, the sunset may not be all that great, but I do like the tree. And, by the way, since I drive the same routes to and from work, over and over again, I take note of and remember most of the trees, etc., along the way, so I can plan ahead a little bit, and tell my self, that just around the next bend is that nice tree. That way, I can safely pull over without scaring any other drivers!



Bird!!!!
Finally, tonight I noticed that I had company. Or, maybe it was that I was causing this bird to have company. Anyway, he was watching me watch the sun set. I'm sure that he couldn't begin to figure out what I was doing, running around the trees, stooping down and aiming whatever that thing that I was holding at the trees and sun. Anyway, I enjoyed his company.

Superstition Mountains and Orange Sunsets

Just about every day I drive by the Superstition Mountains on my way into work, and then again on my way home. I can also see them from my neighborhood, even though I probably live 30 miles away from them. To just about everybody that lives here in central Arizona, the Superstition Mountains are just another common site, like living in New York City and not giving a second thought to the Statue of Liberty! But, I know that to a lot of people around the world, the Superstition Mountains are quite a fascination. To me, they are quite beautiful. I've done a fair amount of hiking back into the range, and am always stunned by the beauty, ruggedness, and amazing fields of cactus. And, no, I haven't stumbled upon the Lost Dutchman's Goldmine. But, this was before I started taking digital photographs.

So, now I almost always pay attention to them, especially when the sun is going up or down, and when there is some kind of cloud cover. I haven't gone a long way out of my way, but there are a few places I will pull over and take pictures of them when I think there might be something special. Above is a sample picture I took this afternoon on the way home that I really like. I especially like the little yellow flowers in the foreground, even though I don't know what they are called.

Through out the day we had beautiful, mostly cloudy skys - the kind that get me real excited! But, by the time I got home around 6pm, they were mostly gone. I went out anyway, and took a few of the 'orange' kind of shots that we get here so often. Here is a sample of tonight's sunset. And, since this is about as bad a sunset as we get here, it's not really too bad. I like to shoot these at about -1 EV, which helps the sun to not be too over exposed, and helps the higher parts of the sky look nice and purple.

Night Sky Photographs

Last evening, the sunset was just another one of those big-orange things. I kept checking the sky throughout the day, and there was not a cloud to be seen - just blue sky. OK, and some pollution in the air, which is what helps the orange look so great. So, I decided to not go out to shoot photos. Today, we had too many clouds. Instead of having a sunset, we just had increasing (decreasing?) grayness. So I didn't go out to shoot any pictures tonight, either.

Instead, I thought I'd post a picture from a couple of nights ago. Awhile back I had the desire to try and take some pictures of the stars in the sky with a cactus silhouetted in the foreground. My very first attempts yielded better results than I was expecting. But, one thing that makes these kind of pictures difficult, is that they happen so late at night. You know, after the sun has gone down!!!

This particular shot was taken at about 7:25 pm. I used ISO 400, f3.5, and an exposure time of 30 seconds. Several of my other 'star' shots, I took at ISO 200 and f6.3. But, I used the higher ISO for this shot so that I wouldn't have to take such a long exposure. I took some similar photos about 6 weeks ago where I wanted to show the rotation of the stars around the North Star. Some of those exposures were 15 minutes long. This means that I sat on the desert floor in the middle of January, for about an hour and a half, and went home with only about 6 shots.

Also, the White Balance setting makes a big difference. On the Canon camera, I like to use the Shade setting when shooting the sunset to bring out the red and orange colors. When shooting the night sky with the stars, the Shade setting makes the sky look quite red also. This is not an unpleasing effect. However, setting the white balance for Day or Cloudy makes the sky look more blue. Both ways look nice. It's just a matter of personal preference.

When these exposures are complete, and the Canon camera shows them on its LCD display, they look nice and bright. But, when I get back home and look at them on the computer, they are still very dark. So, to make them look nice, I have to increase the brightness of the highlights. I guess that is somewhat artificial, but it makes for nice looking pictures.

The picture above looks kind of dark on this page, but if you go to my Desert Night Sky PicasaWeb album and look at those shots in slideshow mode (which makes them fill more of the screen), they look quite nice.

In this shot, can you identify the North Star and the Big Dipper?

See the link to my Desert Night Sky web album.

Another nice night ...

We had some great looking clouds last night. It's what I like to refer to as 'potential.' Of course, you never really know if it's going to be any good or not until it actually happens. So, if there is 'potential,' then I head out. You may recognize this particular cactus from lots of my other shots -- that's because this is just a short walk away from my neighborhood. It's easy to go out there. When I'm really feeling rambunctious, and time allows, I like to drive further away, and hike further into the desert, to find new and interesting places. However, last night, I just went for the short walk again.

As you can see in this first photo, there were partly-clear skys up a little bit higher, and a cloud bank near the horizon. I couldn't tell at this point whether the sun was just going to disappear behind the could bank, or whether it might break through below the bank. There were some interesting streaks in the clouds, at the very least.


After a little while, this next picture shows that the sun did break through below the cloud bank. So, at this point my hopes and expectations rose a great deal.

This next shot shows some of the great orange colors that the Arizona skys produce. I hid the sun right behind the cactus, which really helps the colors stand out. Otherwise, when the sun is directly in the shot, the exposure time has to be much shorter so as to keep the sun from looking like a big-ol' wahsed-out bright-white circle. And with the shorter exposures, the rest of the colors are much more subdued. I really like the brighter colors. I also like it when there are great colors in the coulds, but yet you can see some blue sky too.

Finally, as the sun is now long below the horizon, we still had some great colors in the clouds.

I want to say a great big thanks to CatsRfunNZ, who left the following comment last night on one of the photos in one of my PicasaWeb albums:
"So what is the secrete to Arizona to always having such beautiful sunsets/sunrises??

Do they happen all the time?
Do you use a tripod?"

Here are the answers as best as I can make them up:

There really isn't any secrete - just be willing to get up early enough, or be willing to go out every night. Which, by the way, is why I happen to prefer sunsets over sunrises - they don't happen so early in the day!!! I know that God makes some really beautiful stuff happen in the sky no matter where you are, but I think that the 'dusty' sky here in Arizona help to really make the reds and oranges show up. I've seen really great photos of sunsets from around the world, but maybe they happen here a little more often.

However, they don't happen all the time. Sometimes the cloud cover is too extensive, and the sun never actually rises or sets -- we just get increasing or decreasing grayness. But, as you can see in my albums, when you can actually see the sun set, the worst we get is really awsome orange!!! Which is not too bad for as 'bad as it gets.'

And, no and yes. At first, I run around just holding my cameras and taking shots to experiment with framing the various stuff (cactus, trees, etc.) in the forground, and mountains and such in the background. When it is still bright enough, the exposure time is short enough that the tripod is not necessary. But, I pay attention to the exposure time, and when it gets below about 1/60 of a second, I start thinking 'tripod.' Actually, depending upon the urgency (you know, sometimes things are happening too fast to set up the tripod), I'll actually take a hand-held shot down to about 1/15 second. But, I do my darndest to hold as still as I can. And below this, I definately do set up and use the tripod. Also, as I mentioned in an earlier post (or maybe the equipment list - I don't remember exactly), about this time I shoot mostly with the Canon EOS Rebel xsi DSLR because I can vary the aperature and exposure a great deal.