Sunset at last!

I have been hoping that the sky would behave one evening so that I could try my new camera out on a colourful sky. (Nikon D90) Well tonight was my night! Admittedly there was colour but it only covered a fairly small area of the huge expanse of sky that I can see from my back veranda so I did have to use the tele end of my 18-55mm lens.

The camera was put into full manual mode - I did not want the camera to compensate for the darkness. The aperture was set on f/8 and left on f/8 and the shutter speed was varied according to the results I got. (After each shot I get a couple of second's preview of the image).

Composition is always important to me so I had to carefully choose which trees to include and where to position them and still get the sky colours I was after.

The first shot I am sharing was taken in the area of sky where the sun actually goes down - because it is winter time and I live in Australia, that area is in the North West. (In the summer time the sun goes down in the West).

f/8 1/25sec ISO 200 55mm

The next two photos were taken looking North at the colours reflected on the sky over the horizon. This always happens a little after the brightness in the west and is worth waiting for. The colour is softer but beautiful.

f/8 1/10 ISO 200 22mm

I just had to include the palm tree to show this sky as a tropical sky!

f/8 1/20 ISO 200 55mm

The shutter speed was varied to compensate for the darkening sky - I like to keep the darks "dark", this way the colours are richer. I have not "enhanced" the colours, I know this is easy to do but today was not necessary!

AJ