Sunrise over Rainier

[GDP2012]

I am at a loss of how to photograph sunrises. I took a couple dozen shots as the sunrise progressed and struggled with overexposure washing out the color of the sunrise and underexposure creating to much of a silhouette of the mountains and darken the clouds to much. There didn't seem to be a happy medium point. The attached photo is the only image I have close to what I was trying to achieve. The focus being the colors in the clouds and the cloud formation at the summit of the mountain. I don't mind the darkness of Rainier and the darker foreground and foothills. I am open to any advice and critiques you can throw at me.

Camera: Sony SLT-A55V
No filters used
f/13
1/80 sec
ISO-400
Exposure bias 0 step
Focal length 100 mm
Metering mode - Center weighted average
No flash

Post editing:
Unsharpen mask
Slight rotation adjustment with minimal cropping

[Krusty79]

Beautiful shot. A graduated neutral density filter is designed to reduce the brightness of the sky relative to the ground. However, even when I use mine, I usually have to shoot RAW and bracket my shots so I can make one jpg for the sky, one for the ground and blend the two images using a layer mask. I do that on most of my shots now, as just using the filter is not enough. I only have a two stop filter.

GND filters | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[GDP2012]

Thanks for the critique and filter information. I'm new enough to photography that I haven't tried wrapping my head around the various filter types and when to use them. It may be time to do more research and make a purchase.

[Krusty79]

I have read many times not to buy cheap filters that can degrade your image quality. I would avoid the Cokin ND filters because I have read that they are not really neutral, they're grey. I spent $90 on my Lee .6 GND filter, but I would have bought the .9 (3 stop) one if I had a chance to do it over again.