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I saw this artwork for Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" song and it begged the question "How was that shot?"

Daft Punk Get Lucky

My guess is an extreme telephoto lens allowing the sun and the band to be visually compressed together.

How is this effect achieved?

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    \$\begingroup\$ My guess is it is two shots combined. One of the band in silhouette and one of the setting sun. \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael C
    Apr 27, 2014 at 20:43
  • \$\begingroup\$ You certainly could do it as one shot, but it seems like it be much easier to do as two. \$\endgroup\$
    – rfusca
    Apr 27, 2014 at 20:59
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    \$\begingroup\$ Most probably a composited photo. Here's a guy who did a video of the moon with similar silhouettes. Regardless of this being a video, the short description he gives on the equipment he used and on the location he was standing w.r.t. the silhouettes (somewhere in the comments) might be helpful. \$\endgroup\$
    – Saaru Lindestøkke
    Apr 28, 2014 at 0:27
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    \$\begingroup\$ To get an average male adult human's height to appear the same angular distance as the sun you need to shoot from approximately three miles (4.8KM) away from the humans, so for this shot where the humans appear about 1/2 as tall as the sun it would have needed to be taken from about 1.5 miles (2.4km) away. See dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2167595/… \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael C
    Apr 28, 2014 at 6:36
  • \$\begingroup\$ According to this account the shot linked above was taken using a hot-mirror and several neutral density filters to protect the camera's sensor. joy105.com/… \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael C
    Apr 28, 2014 at 6:43

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The composition is easy: a long telephoto lens in the 1000mm-1500mm range (full-frame equivalent) will have the sun just about completely fill the image.

Composing safely is another matter entirely. That low on the horizon, the sun is safe to look at directly, but looking at it through such a strong telephoto lens might not be. I'm guessing the photographer framed the shot ahead of time, made a good guess at the exposure, and took a blind shot when the sun looked to be in about the right place.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ With high powered telephoto lenses above 1000mmm you should always use a solar filter when photographing the sun, even when it is near the horizon. Most of the damage done to eyes is caused by non visible light in the alpha band and is painless. \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael C
    Apr 27, 2014 at 20:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ Is that to protect the camera, or to protect your eyes? You can frame a shot without ever looking at the sun just by moving the camera around until the lens casts a circular (or no) shadow on the camera body: would the resulting shot damage the camera? \$\endgroup\$
    – Mark
    Apr 27, 2014 at 20:47
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    \$\begingroup\$ Both. It could depending on a variety of factors. See the following link for what happened in less than one minute during a flare test for a 600mm telephoto. the-digital-picture.com/Help/Flare.aspx \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael C
    Apr 28, 2014 at 6:24
  • \$\begingroup\$ or maybe he/she used live view to avoid being blinded by the light :P \$\endgroup\$
    – dialex
    Apr 30, 2014 at 8:06
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I think you already answered your own question, well pretty much. I never tried your guess, but theoretically makes sense to me.

If are not a purist, you can take two photos and merge them on Photoshop. So first take a picture of the sunset you need, then take a photo of your subject's silhouette (using a bright bac, overlap and resize both images on Photoshop so they look natural.

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