Just before...

[rammy]

... the sun completely sets and there is no more colour in the sky. I seem to be liking this time of day a lot more at the moment. Golden hour is great but night time shots seem to look so great when the sun has set and the evening lights are coming on.

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EDIT: This scene is very misleading because to my eye it did not look like this. The sky was a lot darker but by watching the histogram and exposing a little more to the right, the camera can capture an unexpected looking scene.

[rlrouse]

I like this a lot. What shutter speed and aperture did you use?

[rammy]

I like this a lot. What shutter speed and aperture did you use?

Because the light is changing so rapidly at this time of day, you are constantly checking and changing the shutter speed to get the exposure you want. Each scene is unique like this so try out your own settings first.

This is a 10 shot pano which took over a minute and half to take and the light can change slightly between the first and last shot if you end up taking a bit of time. I was there taking shots for over an hour in the changing light.

So here is my technique, and numbers:

For this time of the day, the settings I used:

Focal length: 40mm (17-40 F4L)
Aperture : F/11
ISO : 100
Shutter Speed : 13 seconds (I change this only at low light)
White Balance : Custom (I prefer the orange glow of night lights)
Manual Focus on the lens.
Shot in RAW format.

If you don't like the orange glow of the night lights then set your white balance accordingly, or post process your RAW files.

Taken on tripod with camera rotated to portrait, one-shot with mirror lock up and remote lead.

How to get the settings:

I swung the camera to landscape and zoomed out to 17mm to get in as much of the scene as I could. Concentrated on the middle-right side of the scene to get the exposure. I took test shots (changing the shutter speed) until I got a look I was after. Left everything as is. I then quickly swung the camera to portrait, recomposed, set the focus and started shooting.

Here is another one taken at an elevated viewpoint. I did all my settings over again because as you can see, it is now darker and is slightly underexposed for the lights at the bottom of the scene. Otherwise I would have ended up with a big blob of over exposed light at the bottom. So I used this area for my test shots and double-checked across the whole scene before doing the pano.

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