First Attempt at a Sunrise...Please Help!

[lovingmemories]

Ok, so I am learning about aperture, and exposure and all that good stuff. So I decide to jump both feet first and wake up at 5:00am and go shoot a sunrise. After all, I am a hands on learner. Well....I got maybe 3 good shots out of 489. So much for the hands on! Everytime I try to edit one, the sun is completely blown out and kind of blurry! It just looks like a big orange haze around it. Some of the ones I got has a great reflection on the water, but the actual sun looks really bad! I got one really great shot through the dune grass, where the sun wasn't the focal point.

Any tips would be GREATLY appreciated! The photo is untouched!





EXIF Info
Sony A330
Aperture 4.5
Exposure 1/20
ISO 100
Flash Not fired
Focal 75mm
If you need more info, let me know! Thank you!!!

[lerabu]

Hey there!

Well I too am a beginner but here are a few comments that I hope will be helpful:

Composition:

• Straighten the horizon - a tilted horizon can add to the composition but here I feel you want a straight horizon
• The horizon should either be on the top third line or the bottom third line so that you either lead the eye with foreground interest (beach and sea) to the sun, or from the sun upwards in the sky if you capture a particularly dramatic sky
• I think that here you could perhaps have walked a few step further so to have a small beach line at the bottom of the photo, then catch the sun's reflection on the water and than drive the eye towards the sun

Timing

• Try to take the same shot a few minutes apart, a little time in these situation can give a completely different perspective. Maybe should at 3-5 min intervals, the same scene, and you will get wholly different results

Exposure

• Try going for a longer exposure if possible, bring down that aperture to f/12-f/16 to slower shutter speed (I was told it works for richer colours). Anyhow, a smaller aperture (larger f-number) gives you a sharper picture from foreground to background
• You could go for really longer exposures but then you would need a neutral density filter

Metering
In these situations you want to go into manual mode and meter for the light next to the sun (this is how I learnt it should be done anyway), it will probably expose the sun a bit more, but you will get a rich sky.

Compiling shots
What you can do is get three identical shots with different exposure times, where you expose correctly for the sun, the background and the foreground and then blend them in postprocessing - or you can bracket the shot (-2 stops, 0 stops and +2 stops). Making these shots would require a tripod, but shooting a sunset should be made on the tripod so you can play with longer exposures etc.

I hope this helped some!

Keep waking up! I wish I lived next to the sea to capture shots like these!

This is some theory I know, but nothing makes perfect like tons of practice so don't get dscouraged! Keep plugging!

[lovingmemories]

Thank you so much! Great Advice! I can fix the horizon extremely easily with an editing program. But, I didn't think about compiling the shots!

[Michael_2010]

I love the colors in this one and the composition is okay except for the horizon.

The sunrise is one of my favorite subjects and also my favorite time of the day. If I had been taking this shot, I would have had my camera on a tripod with a cable release. The camera would have been set to manual with manual focus selected and image stabilization turned off. Mirror lockup would have also been selected. ISO 100 is good, but I would have started out with an aperture set at 11-16 for a greater depth of field. Then just dial the shutter speed up or down as needed.

You might want to do some reading about hyperfocus to get really sharp results throughout the field of view, or you could just set it to infinity and dial it back slightly.

Compositionally, I might have dropped my camera down kind of low to the ground, so the breaking waves would have more of a visual impact. Or really hug the ground and let the texture of the sand be a prominent element of the photo. That little black box would also have to go, either by changing my point of view in the field, or zapping it during post.

[Krusty79]

I respect your commitment to photography that motivates you to get out of bed so early. Have you tried taking some shots before the sun is actually visible? Once the sun comes up, it is so much brighter than the beach, it's going to be difficult to get both exposed correctly. You could try a graduated neutral density filter to reduce the brightness of the sky, but I don't know if that will be strong enough. Other options include HDR or exposure blending, which lerabu has mentioned.

If you're feeling up to it, you could also try to add a rock formation or something on the beach as foreground interest in your shot.