Tag Archives: San Juan sunset

Sunset on San Juan Island, WA

[/caption] The sun had just set when I noticed that the lights shinning from the homes in the far right were glowing in the darkening sky. I decided that this would be a good photo opportunity and I wanted to try and get some light glare from the small cluster of porch lights. You can just make out the cluster of homes dotting the edge of the bay. I was wanting to open my shutter as long as possible in order to get a frothy look from the slow moving tide entering the bay but the light was still too bright and the clouds were moving at a pretty good speed. I ended up setting the shutter to 16 seconds and lowered the ISO setting to 100 as well as the white balance to -1. Since the camera was in Shutter priority the aperture was automatically set at F-8, which allowed just the right amount of light. I was using my Canon EOS T1i as well as my Tokina 12-24mm wide angle lens. I was also using my warming and CIR-PL filter. I set the focal length to 21mm so I could show as much of the mountains way out on Vancouver Island as I could. The fast moving clouds were also posing a bit of a problem since I had set the shutter speed to 16 seconds and they were moving rather fast. I was using a tripod, bubble level and remote switch so there was no camera shake but the clouds did cause some blurring effect in the upper right of the photo. I would probably just print an 8×24 or 10×36 panoramic print and have parts of the clouds cropped out. I think this is now my fourth sunset shot I’ve posted on my blog that was taken from this particular weekend, when I was visiting the San Juan Islands, but I have yet to experience such a beautiful and magical place to get these types of photos.