I'm up well before dawn, and a swift look outside reveals stars in the sky. It's clear. I decide upon a super telephoto lens to (hopefully) capture the sunrise over the sea, but until I arrive at my chosen location I'm never sure if I have the right choice of optic(s) slung over my shoulder - there can be a distant cloud bank that so often lurks low on the horizon, which not visible from where I live.
I arrive at Southbourne cliffs in the pre-dawn and immediately know I have chosen wisely. No cloud! I make my way down to the beach; set up my camera on a monopod...and wait. I have fifteen minutes or so before the sun is due over the horizon at 8.04, so I spend the time photographing the half moon and making test exposures. I'm trying to anticipate how much exposure compensation to give my basic meter reading, but dial in a plus value as a starting point as I am shooting into the light. I will make adjustments on the fly.
The sun's disc becomes visible at the expected time and I start making photographs. All well and good, but I always feel that scenes like this need a little something extra, and I've taken to habitually using gulls to achieve this. Always a hit or miss technique, but again an obliging bird sails into the frame before the sun becomes too bright and the shoot is over.
300mm f/2.8 AF-S Nikkor with TC-14EII converter. 1/1600 sec at f/5. + 0.33 EV compensation. ISO 400. Monopod.
© 2012
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