Sunrise in the Eastern Sierras

ehughes

Here are a couple from the past weekend.

Mono Lake





Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest

Ann McRae

They are lovely Ed. Mono Lake is one of those places that I new nothing of, but because of photos of it here, I must go!!

Great, great color!
ann

saurora

I've never been to Mono Lake.....looks like I better pack my gear! These are gorgeous, Ed!!!! (Of course, now I'm wondering....how will I get up early enough to view Sunrise? What's nearby lodging-wise?)

wxwax

Very nice. How do you expose for the sun-on-the-horizon shot? It's always puzzled me.

ehughes

Ann McRae wrote:

They are lovely Ed. Mono Lake is one of those places that I new nothing of, but because of photos of it here, I must go!!

Great, great color!
ann

Give it a try Ann, it's a great place to go shoot..

ehughes

saurora wrote:

I've never been to Mono Lake.....looks like I better pack my gear! These are gorgeous, Ed!!!! (Of course, now I'm wondering....how will I get up early enough to view Sunrise? What's nearby lodging-wise?)

Thanks, There's some lodging in Lee Vining which is basically right on the lake, I've had better luck with some of the hotels on the June Lake Loop. That will put you a half hour or so from South Tufa, where these were shot. If you need some hotel names just yell.

ehughes

wxwax wrote:

Very nice. How do you expose for the sun-on-the-horizon shot? It's always puzzled me.

I stacked a few Grad ND filters on this shot to try and tame the sunrise a bit, I wish I had one more with me that morning.

dbaker1221

Sweet pics!

Dee

These are great!
I particularly like the second Mono Lake shot. It's been so long since we went to Mono Lake.

Do they still allow you to swim in the lake?

That was a briney experience!

Dee

Nikolai

Ed,
Awesome!
I wish I could get there that early..
But for me it's 6+ hours to get there...:cry
And I've found the lodging to be quite pricey over there, too (let alone $4+ gas prices)
Cheers!

Nikolai

Sid,

wxwax wrote:

Very nice. How do you expose for the sun-on-the-horizon shot? It's always puzzled me.

Ed will most likely come with his own technique,
But I'll just say what I learned from Marc on that Tunnel View Sunrise in 2005 (in fact, you were there right next to me:-).

To shoot against the sun, close your aperture down to 22 or more, make sure the sun is partially blocked by something (horizon, branch, rock, whatever...), expose for the sky and shoot (full manual, of course). Bracketing is a good idea, but during the sunrise itself you usually don't have that much time, so you can pretty much just shoot a dozen or so shots and then pick up the winner later.

But you knew that already, didn't ya;-)?

HTH

Mikko

Nice shot ehuges. The Patriarch Grove is an awesome place. I went up there last year and loved it.

Mikko

gluwater

Awsome stuff as usual Ed. Hopefully in the next year or two I'll make it out there. That last shot is excellent.

Scott_Quier

Nikolai wrote:

Ed will most likely come with his own technique,
But I'll just say what I learned from Marc on that Tunnel View Sunrise in 2005 (in fact, you were there right next to me:-).

To shoot against the sun, close your aperture down to 22 or more, make sure the sun is partially blocked by something (horizon, branch, rock, whatever...), expose for the sky and shoot (full manual, of course). Bracketing is a good idea, but during the sunrise itself you usually don't have that much time, so you can pretty much just shoot a dozen or so shots and then pick up the winner later.

But you knew that already, didn't ya;-)?

HTH

Another alternative: Set up on a tripod, using the cable release, set auto-bracketing to as wide as you can, and shoot in RAW, then you have a good chance. Import into something like ACR, make minor adjustments to exposure (if needed) and stack two or more in Photoshop. After that, a judicious use of a gradient map for the ND Grad effect and you're there.

The AB allows you to get the bracketed shots close enough together in time that you don't suffer from the motion of the sun, we're talking less than three seconds.

I love the second and last shots. The last one is one of the few places where I've seen flare put to very good use. Love the shots. what impresses me even more is that you were positioned at the right spot at the right time to capture the sun coming up over the log the way you did. This is fantastic.

ehughes

Scott_Quier wrote:

I love the second and last shots. The last one is one of the few places where I've seen flare put to very good use. Love the shots. what impresses me even more is that you were positioned at the right spot at the right time to capture the sun coming up over the log the way you did. This is fantastic.

Thanks Scott, but to be honest, I wasn't in the right spot, I was setup at another spot and the angle wasn't right. This was a second chance spot that I ran to when the sun started to come over the mountain.

Twisted Image

luv the shots...nice work

ehughes

Thanks Nick, we really should get a group of folks and hit the eastern sierras, so many photo ops there.

ehughes

I'm not sure if they let you swim there or not, I won't be first in line to get in that water

ehughes

Nikolai wrote:

Awesome!
I wish I could get there that early..
But for me it's 6+ hours to get there...:cry
And I've found the lodging to be quite pricey over there, too (let alone $4+ gas prices)
Cheers!

Thanks Nik, if you stay in the June Lake area, the lodging is not too pricey.. We left our hotel at June Lake at 2:30am to get to the Bristlecones before sunrise. It was early but worth it...

System

Stunning shots. Amazing light.