Shooting the Sun at the Edge of Day

If you are going to shoot sunrises, or for that matter sunsets, be prepared to stretch your day out to match the sun's day. So, the alarm goes off at 5:00 am, thus it is time to head out to my chosen destination for photography today.  The night before I had checked the weather forecast to get an idea of what kind of conditions I might expect. This will make a big difference as to whether I decide to concentrate on sunrise photos such as this one. 

Sunrise on Intercoastal Waterway

More than anything, broken clouds make the best sunrises and sunsets. To me, a blue sky without any clouds at all is boring. There is nothing to reflect the gorgeous sunrise colors and it is just too much negative space with very little depth, or for that matter, texture. A heavy overcast is similarly undesirable.  Although there may be a lot of texture in the clouds, often there is a lack of color and contrast that really makes a sunrise landscape pop. What really gets my pulse going is if there is a break in the clouds on the horizon that the sun can use to light a bank of clouds from below. This is called gap light and can result in some of the most amazing scenes for your camera.

I wish there were a way of accurately predicting great conditions for sunrises or sunsets. Something that will be reported during the weather broadcast the night before. Perhaps a meteorologist can predict a great sunrise and would be willing to share that information.

However, without such a forecast, I have decided that when preparing to shoot winter sunrises or sunsets along the gulf coast that I have to learn the local weather patterns. So far, I can say that it is best to plan on shooting on the edges of storm systems. That is, either before a storm system arrives or after the departure. Obviously, as the storm is raging there is really no great light and you and your gear will be soaked. When a large-cool-dry high pressure is parked over the region, that is when you get the clear blue skies.  Sometimes if you are fortunate lingering humidity between storms will help to produce great clouds.

When shooting over water, a lack of wind leads to great water reflections. On the morning when I captured this photo the wind was quite still and it was easy to see that the reflections were going to be stellar. Realize that quite often fronts containing storms stir up lots of wind and will scatter your reflections.

I will share with you a few technical details on this photo. My gear includes a Nikon D850 and the lens chosen was my 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens. I really like this lens for skies. Shooting a wide angle lens just seems to make the sky come alive. The landscape must complement the sky, but a really great sky really captures your attention and adds so much depth to an image. My issue with composing this photo was that the sandy bottom was quite apparent in many of my compositions. I finally found a composition where the water was a mirror rather than a window.

Of course, I almost always use a tripod with a ball head to steady my camera and to allow me to really look at my composition. There is almost no need to hurry when the scene is slowly unfolding and the tripod slows me down just enough. 

Finally, for the camera settings I used ISO 100, f/8 at 1/80 second at 14 mm. The combination of ISO, aperture and shutter speed gave me the depth and the slight motion in the water I wanted while rendering the fine details at a suitable ISO to minimize noise.   I almost always use a setting to lock the mirror up and a shutter delay of 1-2 seconds to allow any vibrations to  dissipate.  This helps to keep my images sharp. Knowing that the motion in the reflection will mean that no matter what I will get some blur, I aimed my auto focus point quite a ways into the photo to keep the clouds in the sky sharp. Checking the histogram in the camera showed that I had the entire range of tonalities in the image and thus would only need minor adjustments in Lightroom to bring out the scene as I saw it with my eyes. This is now one of my favorite images and I would just love to see this in a large metal print.

Here is another of a picturesque sunset made by great clouds........ 

Smoky Mountains Sunset

 

Now, I must close as the alarm is again set for 5:00 am for another sunrise tomorrow. Tonight I will dream of great clouds and light.

 

 

 

Bird Photography at the Black Point Wildlife Drive

In closing out 2018, I spent the last two days of the year photographing birds at the Black Point Wildlife Drive. Located on the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge near Cape Canaveral, Florida, this 7-mile one-way scenic drive is one of the top spots in Florida for photographing all kinds of birds. Of the 503 species of birds identified in Florida, to date, 358 species have been identified at the refuge. Along the drive I spotted wading birds such as little blue heron, tricolor heron, great blue heron, ibis, roseate spoonbill, reddish egrets, snowy egrets and more. Small-fast-moving wood warblers, sparrows, chickadees and finches darted throughout the vegetation. There were osprey galore, (look on the tops of the telephone poles), and lots of ducks, geese and other diving birds. Look for the birding checklist at the kiosk that gives a more complete accounting of the birds there.

Other areas on the refuge such as cabbage palm and hardwood hammocks,  oak scrub, pine uplands and more add to the diversity of habitats for the many bird species. Away from the wildlife drive, I was even fortunate to spot a kestrel and an eagle. 

Reddish Egret

These last days of December were quite warm and dense fog in the mornings lasted until 10 am. This meant that my normal routine of photographing early in the morning had to be adjusted. Still, there were so many birds that posed for my Nikon D850 that I have resolved to return.

Here are a couple of my tips for getting better bird photos: 

Upon spotting a bird I would often set up my tripod and camera with the 500 mm lens and 1.4x teleconverter. At times I did not even leave the vehicle, using it as a blind and the window frame for support.   A couple of recent changes in my techniques that have helped me to improve my bird photography are the use of a smaller aperture and a higher ISO.  By using apertures from f/8 to f/11 I am using the sharpest apertures on my lens and adding the needed depth-of-field for the larger wading birds. There was plenty of light, but by using the higher ISO I was able to use faster shutter speeds to compensate for any camera movement or movement in my subjects.

Roseate Spoonbill

 

Kestrel 

I feel like in the time allowed by my travel budget that I got some really great photos and I would highly recommend the Black Point Wildlife Drive for any photographers wanting to add to their bird portfolios. In fact, the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA) is hosting a regional birding workshop there from January 27-30, 2019. 

More of my bird photography, as well as my other photography, can be viewed on my website at tomhaxby photos.