In Mount Dora, walk to the end of North Donnelly street and you will walk into a very nice park that meets the edge of Lake Dora. This park can be seen on Google Maps, although it is unmarked, it is a great place to take in a sun set over the lake or just a place to stop and think. Adjacent to this park is the Mount Dora Boating Center and Marina.
Pointing the camera right into the sun is pretty tricky and the better results come from not using automatic mode. Essentially, this requires closing the aperture down to f20 or f22 to get the sun beams to flare out. Despite the smaller aperture, you will be exposing directly into the sun so bias towards a quicker shutter speed. Thankfully with using a digital camera, you are allowed to experiment with aperture and shutter first hand to see how it affects the final result. I do not want to detract from those who believe that there are specific mathematical rules to trying to figure out what shutter speed to use with what aperture. The basic rule of thumb is that every stop on the aperture requires twice or half the shutter speed you were at to maintain the same exposure.
D90, 18-200mm VR2
As the sun fell into the far off distance of the St. John’s river out in Sanford, I turned just the opposite direction and really liked the blue tone setting on the Marina. The amount of light left after the sun had disappeared was still enough to provide a reflection of the the boats on the water. The streaks of illumination in surrounded by lights added a nice touch to the picture, bringing in a bit of color to the overpowering blue tone.