Help with Sunset/silhouette

[socalsx]

Just got my Xti and kit lens. Amazing what this camera can do. anyhow, I took so evening shots of the sun going down with trees and clouds. Not taken with tripod. The trees seem a bit out of focus. Is it because I wasn't using a tripod, or is there a way I could have focused better? I used AF. I believe my settings were M: 1sec, largest aperture. the shot with more blue in the sky, I changed it to landscape mode. any other feedback appreciated!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3417/3216143629_d93f1ed4f9_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3333/3216999164_ae91c94a5e_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3104/3216146775_5f4d42c78a_b.jpg

[mrpeabody]

We rarely take images below 1/30 second without our tripod. At one second I know our images would be blurry.

[mpistone]

It's hard to tell if the focus was off or you just had motion blur but my hunch is motion, autofocus should be able to pick out the sky here well enough. 1s is too long handheld, either up the iso or prop the camera up on something to keep it sharp.
For composition, the first two are too cluttered in the foreground so that the subject isn't quite the sunset or the street and buildings. #3 is nice, it has a clear subject (though it would be even better without the other trees). It would be even better with the higher saturation like #2, and without the light in the bottom right and telephone pole in the bottom left.
Good stuff!

[JuiceBox]

That's definitely from camera shake. Even with very steady hands, anything below 1/40th of a second is probably going to have some camera shake-blur in it. Definitely get a tripod if you're shooting during the golden hour.

[sgamuk]

if you expect that you can shoot handheld at 1sec without causing a blur, i'll salute you.

[rammy]

A general rule of thumb is always shoot at a shutter speed of 1/(focal length x crop factor) in normal daylight BUT for low light, throw that rule out of the window and use a tripod or a stable surface :-)

WRT the image, I personally don't like the very dark foreground. On the first two, it holds no interest. On the last one, I guess you are looking for a silhouette of the palm tree. I would suggest either to re-frame and exclude the areas with no interest or look to balance the exposure. For that, you need to get GND filters.