Twilight
No, not that Twilight, I’m referring to the time of the day right after sunset, before it gets totally dark out. A recent trip to Las Vegas reminded me how much I liked shooting at twilight.
For photographers, twilight begins about 15 minutes after sunset. Light disappears quickly so you need to have a sense of urgency. At most, you will get a ten minute window of perfect light to get your shot. Once your shooting window passes, there isn’t much you are going to be able to do to salvage the photos. The skies will be too dark and your subject is going to blend in to the background leaving you with dull, lifeless images. You are trying to capture that dark blue sky that tells the viewer that yup, this is indeed night (but it’s not so dark that the viewer can’t make out your subject).
In order to take advantage of the light, you need to follow some simple rules and you will get the shot every time:
- Get there early! I try to get to my location about 30 minutes before sunset so I can scope out the perfect shot and overcome any last minute obstacles.
- Use your sticks! Because this is a low light situation, it’s nearly impossible to handhold your camera to get the shot – especially if you are shooting at a smaller aperture where the shutter speed could be 15 or 20 seconds. Set up a tripod to eliminate the blur!
- Shoot in Manual mode. Your camera’s meter is going to try to overexpose the image. By shooting in manual you can control the exposure and get the desired look. Is the image in your LCD too bright? Crank up a faster shutter speed!
- Take a lot of pictures! Don’t rely on your camera’s LCD screen to determine if you got the image you wanted. I often take 100 or more images of the same exact scene and throw most of them away when I get them back on the computer.
- Enjoy the moment. Unless you are photographing a national treasure (Golden Gate Bridge perhaps?), you will very likely be the only person there. Enoy the time and have fun while you are shooting.
After you get the images on your computer, you can tweak the colors and composition as needed. I always try to get the image as close to perfect in camera as I can. Invariably, I will usually end up cropping an image and mess around with the settings in RAW a little bit.
Finally, if you really want to angle for some dramatic skies, try to shoot right before or after a storm. At the very least you will end up with some wicked looking clouds in your image and if you’re lucky, you might also get some spectacular colors to light up your image as well.
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