Predicting Beautiful Sunsets,Sunrises,Other? Weather? Times? Direction?

[l2oBiN]

It would be great if anyone has advice on which factors to look for when trying to capture the best possible (most vivid/saturated/intense/unusual/eye-catching light).

For example...

What to look for in the night before weather forecast?
Which direction to shoot and at what time?
How to predict the light?
Which factors make intense vivid sky/land landscape light?
etc..

Thank you in advance.

[SW Rick]

There's an App for iPhone etc, which also works on the web, called Clear Sky Chart (A. Danko is author), which covers part of the equation. I think it is free.

[l2oBiN]

I am currently trying to figure out the Stockholm's skies and "sweet light". Most of the time it seems a very uniform gloomy whiteout in the skies, which seems to block all the mornings sun rays and accompanying dawn/dusk colors. Am I missing something? Perhaps the right time, respective shooting direction? Or a creative filter?

Also are there particular angles from the standard sunrise/set that should display
Most brilliant colors?

[Greg Miller]

It is a high risk / high reward game. The conditions that yield the most dramatic sunrise/sunset effects also mean that more times than not you will get shut out. Such as very heavily clouded days. If you get lucky a gap will form at, or just above or below, the horizon and the sun will shine through the gap and light the heavy clouds from below. But 95% of the time that gap will not occur and you will go home with nothing.

While there are some rules to help guess when conditions will be good, it is still a guessing game. Study the hour by hour weather forecasts even 12 hours ahead and chart their level of accuracy - not very good at all, and often not even close to what really happens.

The only way to be certain of getting the shots is to get out there as often as possible. You don't get good sunrise/sunset shots sitting on the sofa. You have to get out there often and accept that much of the time you will go home with nothing on film. It is just part of the game.

[Marc B.]

Being that you are so close to the Arctic Circle, Winter and early Spring won't afford you the best light. The trade-off will come in Summer and early Fall, when your daylight hours exceed that of the equator. Your sunrises and sunsets will last longer, or seem to.
Ever hear of "Land of the Midnight Sun?"

[ROL]

"Golden Hour" - before sunset and after sunrise, when local contrast is high but overall light intensity/contrast low (especially monochrome).

Low sun, high clouds within 10 minutes before sunrise and after sunset ("red sky at night, sailor's delight - red sky in morning, sailor take warning").

In the mid-lattiudes:

Cirrus clouds in the forecast as per those high altitude ice crystal clouds overrunning a front 4-8 hours before the "storm/precipitation"

Cumulus "popcorn clouds" following a cold front after the event (easily visible on satellite images)


Shooting towards the sun's location is the best bet, but not always.

True "alpenglow" occurs when the sun has already set:
http://www.rangeoflightphotography.com/albums/color/Color-Tuolumne/Sunset%2C%20Cathedral%20Peak.jpg

[pdmoylan]

The most dramatic skies I have experienced are usually before and after strong storms, particularly with strong winds. In the East I find sunrises frequently more colorful than sunsets, but there is nothing in stone.

[jp]

I'm diggin the Shadowfacts app for android phones.

For weather, I like partly sunny/partly cloudy for more variety of sky.

Keep photo equipment handy so you're ready.

[john wood]

For mountains and craggy coastlines, I find the following NOAA site indispensable. For various locations it shows the azimuth and elevation, angle of sunrise and sunset, and angle of current sunlight. For knowing the exact 3 days a year the sun shines through sea arches, or between two mt. peaks, this site is sweet. Just find your photo location and enlarge the map...the angles of light are right there, and you can pre-viz the shot.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/solcalc/

[Tim k]

Google sky map . Its a trick little deal, and free, at least on an android system. It will show you where the sun is at, even in the middle of the night.

[Stephane]

Being that you are so close to the Arctic Circle, Winter and early Spring won't afford you the best light. The trade-off will come in Summer and early Fall, when your daylight hours exceed that of the equator. Your sunrises and sunsets will last longer, or seem to.
Ever hear of "Land of the Midnight Sun?"

I have to totally disagree with that...

Winter, the sun is very low and has a very special smooth quality throughout the day. Sunset colors will come slowly and will last for much longer than the 10mn before and after sunset. Of course if it is overcast, then it's almost like night time. Nice clouds too, especially in spring.

As for summer, I found it to be not the best time as there's so much light! Of course night does not really come and you have (at Oslo latitude) a dusk type of light from 23:00 to 03:00. Skies in summer are often clear, cloudless.

[Heroique]

Thanks everyone for playing.

The correct answer is to get out there and work w/ the conditions you find.

;)

[Robbie Shymanski]

Experience through observation.

[MumbleyJoe]

For mountains and craggy coastlines, I find the following NOAA site indispensable. For various locations it shows the azimuth and elevation, angle of sunrise and sunset, and angle of current sunlight. For knowing the exact 3 days a year the sun shines through sea arches, or between two mt. peaks, this site is sweet. Just find your photo location and enlarge the map...the angles of light are right there, and you can pre-viz the shot.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/solcalc/

Wow, thank you for that link - that's fantastic!

[Ivan J. Eberle]

I like the NOAA forecast discussions and visible satellite images for timing the approach of cirrus clouds 6 to 24 hours ahead of fronts (precursor clouds are often best).

For $5 or whatever the app cost, I also recently put "HelioStat" on my BlackBerry Storm. It gives sunset/sunrise/moonset/moonrise settings and azimuth angles for anywhere on the planet using the phone's internal GPS chip.

[sultanofcognac]

http://photoephemeris.com/

I even print out the pages of the dates I want to shoot in a certain location, so I know where to look for sun/moon rise/set. Then I go to the location and view the landscape, so I know if the sun rises/sets at a certain time it will be delayed by buildings, hills, etc.

I love this program!

[Greg Miller]

I use a very simple rule of thumb for when I am in the field. All I need is a compass. I primarily use this for when I am visiting a location and want to know when to return when the sun is in a specific location. This will sound more complicated than it is.

First a few basic facts.
1) The sun rises and sets due East/West on the vernal equinox (usually March 21) and autumnal equinox (usually Sep. 21). There is 12 hours of sunlight on these days.
2) The sun rises/sets at its furthest point south on the winter solstice (usually Dec. 21) and at its furthest point north on the summer solstice (usually June. 21). For my location the length of the day is 3 hours less than 12 hours (9 hours) than on the equinox on Dec. 21, and is 3 hours more than 12 hours (15 hours) than on the equinox on June 21.
3) the sun's position on the horizon moves in a reasonably linear manner between these 4 dates.
4) For my location, the sun rises and sets about 30 degrees south of due east on Dec. 21, and about 30 degrees north of due east on June 21.


Given all of this, I can calculate that the sun's position on the horizon moves 10 degrees for every hour the length of the day changes (30 degree divided by 3 hours = 10 degrees per hour). Since there are 3 months between the equinoxes and solstices, I can divide 10 degrees by 3 to find that the sun will move about 10 degrees each month, or about 3.3 degrees every 10 days.

So if I am in a location and see that I want to come back when the sun is in a specific position on the horizon, I can figure that out with just a compass. Let's say there is a gap between 2 mountains and I want the sun to rise right in the center of the gap, I can take a compass reading. Let's say that the compass reading is 10 degrees south of due east. For my location I can quickly determine that that would be when the day is 1 hours less than 12 hours (or 1 month before the vernal equinox). That would be Feb. 21. Usually the numbers are not quite so friendly but it is easy to interpolate. If this example were 13 degrees south of due east, I know that the extra 3 degrees would be about 10 days, so Feb. 11 would be the correct day.

[Greg Miller]

Here's an example that illustrates both points that I made in this thread. This view looks due east - so normally the sun rises directly behind the mountain range which doesn't provide much shadow detail to reveal the contours of the mountains. I wanted to shoot this scene when the sun would rise and shine up the valley. I looked at my compass and saw that on the winter solstice the sun would be just far enough south to shine up the valley instead of rising behind the mountains.

So I returned around the winter solstice. On this day you can see there were very heavy clouds. So the probability of getting a nice sunrise was not very good. But I went anyway and got lucky with having a lighter band of clouds in the horizon. There would have been no way for me to predict this kind of light. You just have to go out and see what happens. Many time you will be shut out, but at least you know that if something happens you will be there to capture it.



http://www.gregmillerphotography.com/Panoramas/images/N000654.jpg

[rguinter]

Thanks everyone for playing.

The correct answer is to get out there and work w/ the conditions you find.

;)

I agree with Stephane in the previous post and Heroique.

Sunrise/sunsets are a complete crapshoot. In my 20+ years of doing LF I've never found any consistency or easy way to predict. What looks great an hour before sunset will often turn gloomy and dismal as you stand there waiting for the right light.

And vice versa. After giving up on the gloom, and while driving away with all my equipment neatly stowed, I've often watched the most blazing and brilliant sunsets unfold in my rearview mirror... all the while cursing myself for leaving too soon.

I've also found with winter sunsets the pleasing light seems to last a bit longer... perhaps due to the more oblique angle with which the sun approaches the horizon.

So now, if I've taken the time and effort to visit a scene for sunset/sunrise shooting, even if it turns dismal I never leave early and I still shoot at least a few frames. And I often get surprised.

Bob G.

[gerald.d]

I'm still waiting for my first large format camera to arrive (should hopefully be with me early March), but would fully agree with those who say that you just have to get out there and make the best of what nature delivers. And be very, very patient!

In this part of the world, we're lucky to get 5 chances a year to attempt to get decent shots of sunsets. Here's a couple of links to some digital shots from earlier this calendar year (I feel a bit bad embedding digitally shot images on this forum!).

http://dubai.posterous.com/photos-dubai-clouds-black-and-white

http://dubai.posterous.com/photo-dubai-sunset-6x17-panorama

http://dubai.posterous.com/photo-dubai-sunset

Hopefully I'll manage to learn how to use my new 5x7 and get the opportunity to capture sunsets like this in the near future, but once April comes around, we're unlikely to see a cloud for 6-7 months.

[z_photo]

app for ipad (and iphone?) called the photographer's ephemeris. you can set the location and see sunrise/set, moonrise/ set, and en do measurements of elevation from your position to map features.

[ataim]

A few hours before sunset I look for high clouds with a clearing western horizon. Satalite images also help predicting further out that a few hours. Also storm clouds in the east at sunset are great.