QUICK TIP: How to preserve the warm light of sunset in your digital pictures

Union City Soccer 08-22-10, originally uploaded by kwongphotography.

Early evening is my favorite time of day to shoot. An hour or two before sunset the light becomes directional and takes on a beautiful warm color. It's easy to capture on most films, as they're created to faithfully reproduce colors in the much cooler-looking light we see earlier in the day.

When you're using a digital camera it's possible to lose some of this beauty if you're not careful. This will happen if you choose to set your white balance using a gray card as the camera will remove all of the light's warm color.  Auto white balance may remove some -- if not all -- of this color as well.

To preserve the light's color, use your dSLR's daylight white balance preset. This will force the camera to use a white balance that will render the scene as if it were shot in the cooler-colored light from earlier in the day and preserve the color of the warm sunset light.

CAL v. University of Washington, November 27, 2010

Sometimes football can be really brutal! Believe it or not, no penalty was called on this play.
For more pictures of this game please click here.

CAL v. Stanford, November 20, 2010

 CAL v. Stanford 11-20-10, originally uploaded by kwongphotography.

The Big Game between Stanford and CAL is always a lot of fun to shoot!
For more Big Game pictures please click here.