A Green Flash at Sunset from Perth, Australia No. 1

Seeing the sun set over the ocean is a rare treat for us Aussie east coasters, so our family visit to Perth, Western Australia, allowed us to sit on Cottesloe Beach and enjoy that treat while we ate fish and chips for dinner on Boxing Day night (26 December 2024).

While my family took sunset shots with their phones, I put my Canon mirrorless camera and its zoom lens to my eye and clicked away as the sun sank seaward for the night. When I checked the images after shooting, I let out a “wow” as I saw that I’d captured the atmospheric wonder known as a “green flash.” Green flashes are most commonly seen immediately before sunrise and after sunset due to the concentration and refraction of sunlight in the Earth’s atmosphere. Swipe or click to view the two composite images I made to help you see the emerald light of the green flash.

Canon EOS R camera fitted with an EOS EF to RF adaptor, a Tamron 70-300 mm lens @ 300 mm @ f/5.6, using an exposure time of 1/200 second @ ISO 100.

White balance, exposure, shadows and de-noising were carried out in Adobe Lightroom. Composite images were created in Adobe Photoshop.