We’ve all seen beautiful sunsets and wished we had our cameras with us. But sometimes, you see a beautiful sunset, have your camera in your hands but the pictures somehow fall flat. Here are some quick tips to improve your sunset shots, particularly for those using point-and-shoot cameras.

Probably the most common problem in shooting sunsets is exposure. The sky is brightly lit by the setting sun hitting clouds and atmosphere, while there is diminishing light on the rest of the world, such as people, trees, buildings, etc. When the sunsets are at their most colorful, the light on the ground is very dim. Your camera’s built-in light meter will try to find an exposure that balances those two extremes.

In order to shoot the dramatic sunset you desire, you will need to trick your point-and-shoot digital camera into giving you the exposure you want. Most cameras want to make the sunsets brighter and lighten the sky so that the stuff in the foreground, such as trees or people are correctly exposed. When you aim your camera at the scene, the light meter evaluates everything it sees and chooses an exposure from there. But by slightly changing what the camera looks at, you will get the exposure you want.

Here’s how you trick your camera:

Tilt your camera up so the sky fills the frame. Press the shutter release button down half-way (keep holding it down), and then re-frame your shot to how you’d like it to look. Then press the button the rest of the way down to take the picture.

Your digital camera does two things when you press the button down half-way. It focuses the camera on the primary subject in your frame, and it chooses an exposure setting for the shot. The Meter-and-Reframe technique works great for tricky exposure situations as well as shots requiring you to focus on something other than the camera originally chooses. This technique can be used in a zillion different ways and is useful in all kinds of different lighting conditions.

How to shoot people in front of a sunset:

If you want to shoot a person in front of a dramatic sunset sky, this is a good opportunity to use your flash. Many cameras allow you to choose a flash “fill” option that adds a little added exposure to the foreground and does not overly illuminate your subject. Usually I’m not a fan of on-camera flashes, but this is a great time to use it or you will be stuck with either a great sky and a dark person or a well-exposed person and a washed-out sunset.

The Meter-and-Reframe technique can be used to shoot people as well, but you might have to sacrifice the drama of the sky. The first shot above was made by metering the whole scene by simply looking through the camera and pressing the button (with the flash turned off). You can see that the sky is washed out but the people look fairly well exposed. The second shot was made using the Meter-and-Reframe technique. You can see how dramatic the sky looks, but the people are dark and underexposed. It’s a balance. The better choice is to turn on the flash and ensure that the people and the sky are well exposed. You will have to sacrifice a naturalistic look, but it will probably be the shot that ends up in your photo album.