Sunset in Blue

 In the past post, I had mentioned that most sunrise shots will produce bluish tint and most sunset shots will produce reddish tint.  Well, in some cases you can change the colour tones by using certain filters and may effect the whole picture and changed the mood altogether. Lets take a look at this particular photo that I shot yesterday evening. If you have seen my past blog regarding sunset shots, you will noticed that the former sunset photo was reddish in colour and the water was fiery and rough. That shot was intended to be like that where you could feel the warmth and wind in that picture. Now what you see here in this particular picture is the reverse, cool and calm. How did I do it? The secret is the use of Neutral Density filters or ND filter in short form. The main purpose of an ND filter is to blocked out the harsh sunlight and to slows down the shutter speed or to lengthen exposure's time so that you get to tame the rough and moving water for the effect you are going after. ND filters are graded in stops, how much light it will block out depending on your suroundings and the kind of effect you are after. It starts from #1, #3, #6, #9 and #10. There is also an adjustable type in the market which is actually a 2 stacked together polariser lens whereby you turned it to get the shades/stops you want. The adjustable one has its limits and is mainly for light duty works. The higher the stops number the darker it gets, more light will be blocked with progressively longer shutter speed needed. Also please take note that the darker filters also effect the colour shift normally towards cooler temperature. If you shoots in RAW you can correct the colour temperature in the editing software but if you shoots in JPEG, then nothing much can be done. you can still alter the edited photos in Picasa but has its limits. Okay, let us talk about this picture. Since I had decided to smoothen the water with the use of an ND filter, lets think for a while. Would it be nice if the water becomes reddish in colour or the blue suits it more? I think you should know the answer right? Blue would be more suited for this kind of pictures and with the ND filter attached, you don't have to do anything, the water will turns out this way, believe me! Just make sure the sky is not to bright  or the sun directly blaring its sunlight to you camera because like I said, harsh sunlight is warm light so you will get yellowish tint instead. This kind of shots is best done on an overcast day where some clouds will block out the harsh sun ray and not to heavy a cloud where you cannot get colourful sky like this. What settings did I use? I will list it out below but it will largely depends on the amount of light, time of day and what stops ND filters you were using:
a) ND #6 mounted to 18-55mm kit lens. Turn off the VR. Mounted the camera to a sturdy tripod.
b) Set the ISO to 100 for minimum noise and maximum shutter speed.
c) Set to Aperture priority mode and set it to f22 for least light to extend exposures time.
d) Compose your shot and check the exposure timed to at least 30 seconds to smoothen the water out. If the time is too short you can stack another ND filter onto the first ND filter or you can add a polarising filter to lengthen exposure time.
e) Take a test shot, if you notice too much rippling of the water of the picture came out too bright, change the exposure compensation in your camera to -5EV if it allows. Extend your shutter speed to 45 seconds or 1 minute. From now on it is trial and error.
f) Make sure you use the self timer or a cable to reduce camera shake.
For the picture above, I had to take five shots of 30s to get one right by manipulating the f stops and exposure compensation from the camera. It is a bit tricky and you will need a bit of luck to get a shot like this but it is all worth it. You can take a few hundreds of photos a day but one photo like this will make my day!
Happy Shooting! I sincerely hope that to those of you who have never tried this kind of photography techniques can start trying, there will be alot of hit and misses but it is all worth it when you hit one and you will treasure every moment of it and shares it to your friends and family.