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Taking a small break from publishing images from my recent travels to bring you a little closer to home… my home that is. I had the opportunity to shoot a sunrise over the weekend with a couple of friends @brianfitz1 & @DanKing_IRL in Greystones Co. Wicklow. This is a place on my must visit list for a while now, and at only 40mins drive from my house there is no good reason it took this long to visit. The forecast for the morning was for heavily overcast Sky’s which I duly ignored. I’ve learned to just go, even if the forecast says it will rain. Just look at what happened the last time the forecast said rain (& here)
We arrived well before sunrise which was a good thing as the sky was relatively clear apart from some fast moving clouds. It was time for some long exposures I thought to myself. I wandered around the rocks and picked a couple of possible locations for the actual sunrise and then settled down in a location I had picked to do a couple of long exposures. When I say a couple I actually mean a couple. Although I had a good 20 minutes before sunrise the exposures were running between 4 and 6 minutes, so only enough time for 3 frames max. The above is the frame I was most happy with, weighing in at 4 mins. You can actually see some predawn light on the right side of the horizon.
The tripod was setup low to the rocks and I chose a composition using the rule of thirds with the rocks occupying the lower 2/3rds while the sky filled the top 1/3rd. The light was increasing rapidly at this stage, even changing significantly during a single exposure. I used a 2 stop ND Grad filter to help balance the sky and foreground, a poloriser to manage the reflections from the pools of water and a 3 stop ND filter to extend the exposure even further.
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Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Lens: Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM
Exposure: 4 minutes
Aperture: f/18
Focal Length: 20mm
ISO Speed: 50
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