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Sony NEX-7, Zeiss Touit 12mm, f 6.3, 1/200sec.
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Sony NEX-7, Zeiss Touit 12mm, f 8, 1/8 sec.
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Sony NEX-7, Zeiss Touit 12mm, f 8, 1/3 sec.
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Sony NEX-7, Zeiss Touit 12mm, f 18, 1/15 sec.
Overview & Quick Tips
The sexist beach in the world! If you visit Rio, I know you’re gonna to take your camera to Ipanema at sunset!Detailed information
Daytime
By day, Ipanema is a voyeurs paradise and a cool place to photography beach soccer, volleyball, surfing, and bronzed flesh. Ask before you take anyone’s photo—it’s only polite. Joggers, skaters and cyclists traverse the bicycle lane behind the beach, and on Sundays half the road is shut to traffic, giving them added room. People are always fun to photography, but it’s the sunset that makes photography at Ipanema special.
Sunset
Ipanema is aligned along an east/west axis, making it perfect for a sunset shot down its the 3km (2 mile) length. At the Eastern end, a rocky bluff called Arpoador (or The Harpoon Yhrower) is aways populated with photographers, fishermen and romantic couples at sunset, but there’s ample room for everyone.
Copacabana Beach lies around the other side of this bluff. Copacabana is of course a spectacular in it’s own right, but the alignment of Inpanema makes it superior for sunset photography, and the Dois Irmãos (Two Brothers) mountain and Gávea Rock rise at the western end of the Ipanema, making a wonderful background.
In the middide (or beginning) of the year (month) the sun sets over the ocean, just in front of these mountains. In (MONTH ) the sun sets behind the mountains.
. Be sure to stay on a while after sunset. Twilight is also an awesome time to shoot Inpanema from Arpoador and the fishermen make great silhouettes.
Photography
There are countless opportunities for composing shots; ontop of the rocks at Arpoador, down at the sandy shoreline or rock pools get your tripod wet and scrabble into rock pools. . No doubt you’ll want to be several places at one when the sunsets, so go early and scout out a few locations you’d like to try as the sun goes down.
Moving water is great for adding drama to photos, so and play about with shutter speeds where the waves are rolling in. Try around 1/500 sec to ‘freeze’ water droplets, to a second or more to blur the waves.
Go wide. Focal lengths in the 18-28mm range worked best for me (12 to 19mm with a 3/4 ‘cropped’ sensor).
Tell me if you do it!
I’d love to see a time-lapse video from mid-afternoon to after dark shot from Arpoador If you do this please let me know! Good luck!
Contact Details
- Address: Arpoador rio
Best Times of day to visit
- Best time of day: Sunset
- Alternative time: Any
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GPS coordinates:
Get Directions
If you plan to stay in Rio, accommodate yourself within walking distance of Ipanema / Arpoador so you can photograph here each day. No sunset is ever the same and you’re sure to keep coming back!