Golden sunset in Vernazza
After a hot and humid day of exploring the narrow streets of Vernazza and getting refreshed in the cool waters of the Ligurian Sea, there is nothing better than to watch the sun go down behind the distant hills. Especially if you have a view like this one, and even better to pair it with some local pasta and wine.
This is a popular view point just next to one of the towers of Vernazza (of which there are 3!). The view is of the full length of the town with the Doria Castle in the middle, add some typical local vegetation in the foreground and of course the beautiful clouds with the golden globe of the setting sun and you’ll get a postcard perfect picture of one of the gems of the Cinque Terre.
How it was shot
Of course shooting against the sun is always challenging for the camera so in order to capture the full dynamic range of the scene I had to take multiple exposures of 8, 16 and 60 seconds using an ND filter to achieve exposures that long.
Of course shooting against the sun is always challenging for the camera so in order to capture the full dynamic range of the scene I had to take multiple exposures of 8, 16 and 60 seconds using an ND filter to achieve exposures that long.
Post processing
Once the frames are captured and selected, the post processing consists of a few simple steps. First, the basic adjustments in Lightroom to lift the shadows and reduce the highlights for each frame and balance the exposures to make the job easier to blend in Photoshop.
The blending of these frames was done by using luminosity masks. Here, the base frame was the overexposed one as this is where all the details of the town can be seen and the darker exposures were used to bring back the sky and the sun.
The final adjustments of the blended photo consist of some contrast and color adjustments to warm up the sunlight and minor dodging and burning.
- Camera: Fuji X-T3
- Lens: Fuji 10-24 f4 @14.5mm f8
- 3 exposures: 8, 16, 60 seconds