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.