Filming A Sunset

C

Chris Knight

Member
I need to film a sunset for a montage project that I'm doing for school. Essentially I need to be able to see sun clearly fall behind the horizon, and as it sets completely, everything else becomes dark for a seamless fade to black.

Something like this: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/image/s_sunset25.jpg

I'll be using a Sony PD170 for this project.

Will I need extra equipment besides the obvious . How abut extra ND filters (in addition to the two built-in ones). What about a sun shade to prevent glare, or will the standard lens hood be sufficient?

I'm thinking I'll want to shoot at a high shutter speed and a really small aperture, so that when the sun sets completely, the darkness is quite evident. Does this plan make sense?

What should I do as far as white balance goes?

Any other tips?

Thanks a lot guys. I appreciate the help.
 
Matte boxes are for covering the light, but you want to film the sun, so there is no way to cover what you want to film.

for the photo you showed, i think they used a Graded ND filter, so the sky is in darkened in comparison to the ground.

For avoiding lens flare, you have to clean up every piece of glass, any dust will show.

Thats, it,

Good luck
 
i think i read somewhere that you can damage your camera by filming sunsets/sunrises due to the uv rays, but as long as you have some ND filters you should be fine.

(first post, by the way)
 
Max Spang said:
i think i read somewhere that you can damage your camera by filming sunsets/sunrises due to the uv rays, but as long as you have some ND filters you should be fine.

(first post, by the way)
Click to expand...

this is true, thats why i always have a UV filter on my cam by default (obviously i remove this when i want to use something else)

1) this protects my expensive lense from being damaged (cheaper to replace a $15 uv filter)

2) this protects my CCDs from uv rays

3) keeps dirt from hitting the lense; very easy to remove and clean the UV filter
 
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