03/05/13 Sunset over Cameron Bluffs on Mt. Maganize, Arkansas

Sunset over Cameron Bluff on Mt Magazine in Arkansas

Taken with a Nikon D800e, iso 100, Nikon 14-24 Lens @14mm, F9, 1/1250 of a second, Single Exposure.  I was lucky enough to catch this great sunset as the sun was just dropping over Cameron Bluff on Mt. Magazine last week.  All day the weather had been overcast and hazy, but when I reached the summit of Mt. Magazine, things changed dramatically.  The sky started to clear and the temperature dropped by as much as 20 degrees.  The wind was blowing out of the north and I figured the wind chill was close to 24 degrees F.  I had been working the opposite side of the Cameron Bluff overlook and just happened to turn around in time to catch a great sunset over the bluff.  I did not have my tripod and with the wind that was blowing I knew I had to go to a very fast shutter speed to stop the trees in the foreground.  I set the camera to iso 100 and then moved my shutter speed to 1/1250.  The overall exposure was quite dark in the area around the bluff and the sun appeared to be overexposed, but as I worked the image up in Capture One 7 I was pleased to see that I had an amazing amount of detail still available to me in the hills below the bluff.  My only issue was FLARE, which is a real problem with the Nikon 14-24 whenever you are shooting into the sun.  I have a love/hate relationship with this lens as it’s so sharp but the issue with flare is terrible.  I spent more time working on the flare issues than anything else.  The 14-24 tends to create a rainbow looking flare and depending on the angle to the sun it can tend to dominate the lower portion of a shot away from the sun.  As you are shooting into the sun and want the sun in the shot, there is no way I know of block out the flare at the time of exposure.  The D800e was still able to give me a wonderful shot that I feel captured the moment perfectly!