Behind the shot: Sunset - Mathias Joschika

Mathias Joschika

Behind the shot: Sunset

In this series I try to show you how I took some of my pictures in my portfolio. You will get to know the gear and settings I used, as well as a little back story of how and why the image was created.

Enough introduction - let's get it on!

Sunset
Gear
Settings
Body: Sony a7ii

Shutter Speed: 1/30
Lens: Sony 28mm 2.0

Aperture: 11
Flash: None
Focal Length: 28mm
Filter: 3 Stop Soft GND

ISO:
100

Spontaneous sessions sometimes really pay of.

This spot is super accessible and is also easy to squeeze in between other appointments your daily life throws at you. After coming home from a multi day work assignment, I decided to head up there and enjoy the sunset.

Even though I used a 3 Stop GND, I still had to do a bracketed shot, because the dynamic range of the scene was way to big. I wanted to get as much detail as possible in the clouds as well as in the valley. What use is a nice sunset with a lot of black underneath it?
For everyone interested: I combined the shots using Lightrooms HDR Merge module.

Some of you might ask: Why did you use a 3 Stop GND and not a darker one? That is an easy answer: I only own one GND. Even if I had a darker one, I probably still would have struggled with the foreground and the valley.