How to photograph a sunset, and above all where to stand

Most failed sunsets are not lost on the settings. They are lost earlier, on the scouting: you arrive at the right time in the wrong place, or in the right place half an hour too late.

Here is the method in the order that actually matters, from scouting to the shutter.

1. Know where the sun sets, not only when

This is the step everyone skips. The time of sunset is everywhere, the direction almost nowhere, and it is the direction that decides where you stand.

The sun only sets due west on two days a year, at the equinoxes. The rest of the time it drifts: towards the north-west in summer, the south-west in winter. At mid latitudes the gap between a June sunset and a December one reaches sixty degrees of azimuth, which moves the scene from one end of the landscape to the other.

In practice: the lighthouse you wanted silhouetted against the setting sun is only in line at certain times of year. Checking takes ten seconds and saves you two trips.

2. Distrust the theoretical horizon

The official sunset time assumes a flat horizon, the one belonging to an unobstructed sea. Almost no interesting place has one.

As soon as there is terrain to the west of your spot, the sun disappears behind the ridge well before the stated hour. In an Alpine valley the gap between the official day and real direct light routinely reaches one to two hours. It is the mistake that costs the most wasted trips in the mountains, and it is completely invisible in a weather app.

The field rule: if you can see a ridgeline to the west, assume your sunset happens considerably earlier, and arrive early.

3. Know the four moments, they are nothing alike

A sunset is not an instant, it is a sequence of roughly ninety minutes.

• Golden hour, while the sun sits between 6° above the horizon and the horizon itself. Warm, raking light, long shadows. The moment for portraits and textured landscapes.
• The sunset itself, a few minutes. The sun is a subject now, not a light source.
• Blue hour, from the sun’s disappearance until roughly 6° below the horizon. The sky goes deep blue and balances with artificial light. The best moment for architecture and cities, and almost everyone has already left.
• Twilight, down to 18° below the horizon. Nothing left for the eye, but still something for a sensor on a long exposure.

The classic mistake is packing up the moment the sun drops below the horizon. The next twenty minutes are often the best.

4. The settings that genuinely matter

Not many, in fact, once the scouting is done.

• Meter on the sky, not the ground. Otherwise the sky blows out. Underexpose by a third to a full stop, then lift the shadows in processing: a burnt sky can’t be recovered, a blocked shadow often can.
• Stay at low ISO for as long as the shutter speed allows. The light falls fast, so watch the speed rather than the sensitivity.
• Set white balance manually, around 5500 to 6500 K. On automatic, the camera corrects away the warm colour you came for.
• The sun in frame wants a small aperture. At f/11 or f/16 it renders as a star, at f/2.8 it is a white blob.
• A tripod from blue hour onwards. By then, speeds drop below a thirtieth of a second.

5. To photograph a sunset, arrive an hour early

It is the most obvious advice on this list and the one that changes the most. An hour early, you have time to find the frame, try two compositions, and be ready when the light arrives rather than running while it passes.

The most interesting light rarely lasts more than ten minutes. You don’t do your scouting during those ten minutes.

The tool I use for points 1 and 2

Running into the terrain problem is what made me write Suncam. You drop a pin on the map, the app draws the exact direction of sunrise and sunset from that precise point, and analyses the heights all around on a radius of up to twenty kilometres to say when the sun will really go.

It also answers the alignment question: on which dates will the sun set in line with this street, this bridge, this valley.

The summary

Scout the direction before the time. Check whether there is a ridge to the west. Stay twenty minutes after sunset. And arrive early.