LANDSCAPE: What to focus on when taking sunset pictures?

i was just wondering. would you focus on the forground?

its just im going away to the coast for 2 weeks and i want to get some sunrise and sun set pictures and not make a lash up of them.

just a couple pointer would be real useful.

the only real tip i know is a real slow shutter speed and thats it

soz for the noob question

Short answer - everything. Read up on using small apertures (i.e. large f/stops) and hyperfocal distances.

By the way - this should be over in "talk about photography". This is a photo sharing forum.

Good luck!

focusing about 1/3rd of the way into the picture and a decent aperture f/16 should help you geta sharp image front to back, but you could get your aperture right open down to something like f/4 if you have a particularly interesting FG. you dont necesseraly need a real slow shutter speed, my recent coastal post has a shutter speed of 1/3rd sec, depends what you are after though. musts for sunset/sunrise pics would be a tripod and some ND grads, you will struggle with exposure shooting into a low sun without them.
others might have other advice which is different i am just saying what works for me

dave

ok m8.

sorry people

ND?
GRADS?

they like filters cause i got quite a few of them past down from my uncle

GND would be helpful if you take some sunrises/sunsets

GNDs are really useful. Without them you either have to take multiple shots with braketed exposures and then blend them in PP, or have the foreground silhouetted. I'd recommend a 3-stop hard-edge one to start with. A soft edge one is better if your horizon isn't flat.

As for what to focus on, I've found that it doesn't really matter as long as you use a reasonably small aperture, such as f/11, unless you have something really close in the foreground (as in a few feet away). Then the hyperfocal distance comes into play but I wouldn't worry about that for now.

Hperfocal distance and get an interesting foreground "lead-in" to the sunset.

exile wrote in post #6028649
Short answer - everything. Read up on using small apertures (i.e. large f/stops) and hyperfocal distances.

Also read up on diffraction caused by using small f-stops