Aruba sunset
Sep, 2021Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken at the Palm Beach in Aruba. The beach looks to the west and has pretty amazing sunsets every day ;-) I was at the end of a fishing / boat dock for this image, so there is nothing in the foreground except for the water.Time
The time for this image was about 6:45pm. The sun was well on its way down into the ocean. but still bright enough that there was lots of flexibility for exposure without having to use long exposure times.Lighting
Lighting for this image was provided by mother nature ;-) I did use manual exposure mode to enable me to control the intensity of the sunlight versus the foreground.Equipment
This image was taken with a Canon PowerShot G3X. The G3X is one of the best of the PowerShot series camera made by Canon (in my opinion). The G3X has a 20MP, 1” sensor and a fixed lens that goes from 24-600mm. I have carried this camera for travel photography quite a lot over the years. The image was captured in manual exposure mode. This enabled me to underexpose the sky a bit, while still maintaining visibility to the foreground elements. This also results in a bit more of the beautiful sunset color in the sky. The specific settings for this image are ISO 320, 1/250sec, f/7.1. The focal length for this lens was about 170mm (full frame equivalent). The white balance for this shot was set to “shade” to provide a little extra saturation of the orange color of the sunset.Inspiration
I love taking sunset pictures - - especially when there are clouds on the horizon to interact with the light from the sun. For this particular image there were not a lot of clouds around, but there was that boat anchored off the shore that made for a great foreground intersecting with the sphere of the setting sun.Editing
I shoot in RAW format for most images, including this one. Fortunately, the G3X shoots in RAW as well as JPEG. Editing was done using Lightroom. Editing for this image included some adjustments to contrast and exposure.In my camera bag
I prefer to travel with an interchangeable lens camera and various lenses, but sometimes it is more convenient to take a fixed lens camera to minimize the amount of equipment you have to lug around ;-) For this trip, the G3X was the perfect choice. It is small, light, and has a very flexible fixed lens. In addition to the G3X, I also packed a small travel tripod (that I didn’t use), a circular polarizer and a couple of ND filters. I also packed a ColorChecker Passport that is used to capture a reference image for post processing color adjustments in difficult lighting situations.Feedback
I think the main point that I will mention here is that you can make great images with just about any camera if you are careful about how you shoot, use manual exposure (if available) to deal with difficult or unusual lighting situations, and are aware of camera limitations (e.g., small sensor result in more noise in low-light situations, etc.). The only other point I’ll mention for this kind of travel photography is to scout out the locations available and plan your shots for the best time. And of course have fun!!
