I'm not impressed with my Sunrise effort, any tips?

So I headed out last night with the intention of getting a glorious sunrise photograph to keep me happy for a few days. Unfortunately, I don't have such a photograph.


I was wondering if anyone could give me any tips, hints, advice or anything that you reckon could help me improve.

This is what I ended up with;












(Note; these have obviously been through PP and cropping)


I would've been better off in bed. Also, what can I do about glare? I had to fight with it a lot more than I expected.



Cheers guys.

magicbastarder

probably a simple enough point, but you don't have to have the sun visible or in the frame for a successful sunrise shot; it's possible to hide it behind something so it doesn't blow the contrast; i've attached a shot i got in the phoenix park as an example.

AnimalRights

Good advice I did not known about Bastarder.

mrboswell

Magicbastarder is right.

But sometimes I like the glare effect:



I just exposed a little under on the sky and made sure the shutter speed was fast enough to underexpose the player.
This isn't necessary a sunrise pic but I think it may work similarly

Chorcai

I like 1 and 2 it hides all the ****e on the righthand side.

NothingMan

I love the first one OP, I would say that is a great sunrise shot. Problem solved.

mrboswell

NothingMan wrote: »

I love the first one OP, I would say that is a great sunrise shot. Problem solved.

I agree.
Foe me I try different things and I find out what I think doesn't work but sometimes I find out something that works for me and I like it.

That balcony on the right is much nicer while have a few beers on it!!

magicbastarder

mrboswell wrote: »

Magicbastarder is right.

But sometimes I like the glare effect:

I just exposed a little under on the sky and made sure the shutter speed was fast enough to underexpose the player.
This isn't necessary a sunrise pic but I think it may work similarly

the glare works, but you've a nice simple, identifiable shape to silhouette, which works well.

mrboswell

magicbastarder wrote: »

the glare works, but you've a nice simple, identifiable shape to silhouette, which works well.

Yea, I've tried it before when there is a lot going on in a setting, that you wish to silhouette, but the further from the sun you go the brighter things will become.

In low light similar to sunrise, exposing for the sky allows you to get more of the setting into a silhouette as there is less available light.

I'd try more of them but I just have to get my 8 hours!!

bullpost

On the east coast I've always found it more difficult to get good sunset shots.
Sunrise is a better time to shoot but obviously this time of year that means a very early start to the day.

Cheers for the replies.


I think one of the problems I had was that the bridge in the picture is pretty much all I know of that you can get a sunrise picture with? So with that in mind, I don't really think I had much choice other than to get the sun in the shot and try to silhouette the bridge/surroundings with it.


I don't think I'll bother my ass trying it again, unless I'm somewhere else. Drogheda's not great.


Ironically enough, the best photo I took (in my opinion) was before the sunrise.




(No PP/Crop, yet)

mrboswell

Deleted User wrote: »

Cheers for the replies.


I think one of the problems I had was that the bridge in the picture is pretty much all I know of that you can get a sunrise picture with? So with that in mind, I don't really think I had much choice other than to get the sun in the shot and try to silhouette the bridge/surroundings with it.


I don't think I'll bother my ass trying it again, unless I'm somewhere else. Drogheda's not great.

Keep at it - practice makes.......better!

elven

I glare. Why were you fighting with it? Did someone tell you it's bad?

Love taking pictures of stuff in low sunlight, rather than the sky itself. But i suppose that's a personal preference thing, i just can't do landscapes.

swingking

OP

The first shot is a fantastic sunrise shot.

I would perhaps, have tried to reduce the contrast with a Grad ND filter. That way, you would get more detail in the foreground.

But what you have is really good

swingking

swingking wrote: »

OP

The first shot is a fantastic sunrise shot.

I would perhaps, have tried to reduce the contrast with a Grad ND filter. That way, you would get more detail in the foreground.

But what you have is really good

Unfrotunately I don't have a Grad ND Filter. Thanks for the kind words though

elven wrote: »

I glare. Why were you fighting with it? Did someone tell you it's bad?

Love taking pictures of stuff in low sunlight, rather than the sky itself. But i suppose that's a personal preference thing, i just can't do landscapes.

Glare can be nice at times, I admit, but I'm just not really into it, myself. I think it can become very distracting. If I'm taking a photo and notice glare, I'll generally try to get rid of it as much as I can.

Mountainsandh

Deleted User wrote: »

So I headed out last night with the intention of getting a glorious sunrise photograph to keep me happy for a few days. Unfortunately, I don't have such a photograph.


I was wondering if anyone could give me any tips, hints, advice or anything that you reckon could help me improve.

This is what I ended up with;


(Note; these have obviously been through PP and cropping)


I would've been better off in bed. Also, what can I do about glare? I had to fight with it a lot more than I expected.


Cheers guys.

Sir Sir ! Grovelling apologies, but I've a real newbies question to do with the answers you got in this thread, can I ask ? can I ?

Ok so, here it is : Mrboswell is talking about "exposing under" on the sky, or "exposing for the sky", please, does it mean you're just estimating that you need to underexpose for the sky, or would you be using a light meter ? (just heard of them, never used or saw one) or histogram ?
And then does it mean that you are basically deciding to ignore the exposure on the rest of the pic (thereby likely getting silhouettes or shadowy parts), and just focusing on the sky's exposure ? Heard/read that phrase lots of times, always wondering...

Really sorry KKV for hijacking like that, I'm "learning by peeping" (:o) and your post is interesting .

For what it's worth I like pic #1 best, I like the criss-cross losenge effect of the sun beams and the colours. Liked #3 too but I find the bit of crane distracting.

Thanks and sorry, bit mortified here .

The general idea (I'm a beginner, too, so don't take my word for this) is to aim at the sky (without the sun in the frame) and whatever combination of Shutter/Apreture you get, you keep those settings.

What I tend to do is zoom into the sky directly beside the sun in Aperture priority (For some reason I glide towards f/16-f/22), and whatever shutter speed the camera recommends, I flick over to manual mode and apply the same settings.

So if i was at f/22 and the camera recommended a shuter speed of 1/250, then I'd just put those settings on manual mode. Then i adjust my camera to the scene I want (ie; i zoom out from the sky beside the sun and aim at what I want a photo of, in this case the bridge/sun/scotch hall) and snap away.


The reason for that is because, when you have the camera facing at the sky, it'll give a suggested shutter speed, but when you pull back to frame your shot with the sun in it, the camera will change shutter speed because the ligth from the sun is alot brighter than that of the sky (however, you want the sky to be exposed right, not the sun).



Again, I'm still learning too, so hopefully someone will pop along and explain better, or correct me.

Also, for anyone who cares; this is pretty much everything else I took this morning, that was worth keeping;

mrboswell

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Sir Sir ! Grovelling apologies, but I've a real newbies question to do with the answers you got in this thread, can I ask ? can I ?

Ok so, here it is : Mrboswell is talking about "exposing under" on the sky, or "exposing for the sky", please, does it mean you're just estimating that you need to underexpose for the sky, or would you be using a light meter ? (just heard of them, never used or saw one) or histogram ?
And then does it mean that you are basically deciding to ignore the exposure on the rest of the pic (thereby likely getting silhouettes or shadowy parts), and just focusing on the sky's exposure ? Heard/read that phrase lots of times, always wondering...

Really sorry KKV for hijacking like that, I'm "learning by peeping" (:o) and your post is interesting .

For what it's worth I like pic #1 best, I like the criss-cross losenge effect of the sun beams and the colours. Liked #3 too but I find the bit of crane distracting.

Thanks and sorry, bit mortified here .

No need to be mortified at all.

As KKV was saying you can get different exposures depending on what fills the frame of the camera. But what you also have to consider is how the camera meters. There are a few different modes that most cameras have for metering:
Spot metering - the camera will only measure a very small area of the scene, which is usually just the centre part of the frame

Evaluative metering - metering is directly linked to, and concentrated on, the active Autofocus (AF) point. Light values measured at the active AF point are compared with light values measured from the metering segments surrounding the active point, and the camera's metering system attempts to provide an accurate exposure based on that comparison

Partial metering - similar to Spot Metering, but covers a slightly larger area of the frame

Center-weighted average - averages the exposure for the entire picture area, but with greater emphasis on the center metering zones.

Whatever mode for metering you choose can depend on what result you want as they will all give slightly different results.

There is a meter on most, if not all, dslr's - like this one below:
http://z.about.com/d/photography/1/0/Y/-/-/-/proper-exposure-light-meter.jpg

So to underexpose I will change iso/aperture/shutter speed or any combination of them to bring the camera meter to the left and the opposite to overexpose.

A histogram will give you similar information as the left side of the histogram represents the darks and the right represents the lights (put simply)

I'm not necessarily ignoring a part of the pic, although I could chose to do so.
For a silhouette pic essentially what you need to do have a dark object in front of a bright background - this could mean an underexposed object in front of an properly exposed or even over exposed background.

Mountainsandh

Thks KKV and Mrboswell that really helps. I've my Pentax K-x since Christmas, self-taught a bit on my old fujifilm finepix S5600 first, knew the manual by heart, but I'm afraid haven't studied the manual for the K-x yet .

KKV, how silly am I, it never occured to me to use the AP setting first to let my camera suggest settings, and then copy/take inspiration from them in manual setting... I just sort of estimate by the amount of light there I can see, or if it's a tricky light I just take a pic and view it, then change settings... I've been using the manual setting mostly to teach myself. Really have to join a club or take a course.

MrBoswell I've been using center weighted metering and never really dared change it since I hadn't read manual (it was on the "to do" list), but I might give it a go and experiment a bit then with spot metering, that sounds really good.

So many things to learn, it's great though .

KKV I really like the town shot, love "plunging" street views, and to be able to see the relief of a town.

mrboswell

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Thks KKV and Mrboswell that really helps. I've my Pentax K-x since Christmas, self-taught a bit on my old fujifilm finepix S5600 first, knew the manual by heart, but I'm afraid haven't studied the manual for the K-x yet .

KKV, how silly am I, it never occured to me to use the AP setting first to let my camera suggest settings, and then copy/take inspiration from them in manual setting... I just sort of estimate by the amount of light there I can see, or if it's a tricky light I just take a pic and view it, then change settings... I've been using the manual setting mostly to teach myself. Really have to join a club or take a course.

MrBoswell I've been using center weighted metering and never really dared change it since I hadn't read manual (it was on the "to do" list), but I might give it a go and experiment a bit then with spot metering, that sounds really good.

So many things to learn, it's great though .

KKV I really like the town shot, love "plunging" street views, and to be able to see the relief of a town.

No probs.

Learning to use manual will pay off in the long term.

Don't forget to learn to use "exposure lock" because you can use spot metering and lock the exposure, but then you can recompose the shot with the locked exposure.

magicbastarder

exposure in a nutshell - your meter is designed to modify the exposure to create a scene of 18% grey, based on the amount of light reflected from the subject. this is a compromise, and 18% grey is taken to be the 'average' shade of scenes, so it often/usually works.
it doesn't always work, because your subject could be a snowfield, and should be nearly fully white, or it could be a coal bunker, and should be nearly fully black. your camera has no way of knowing what shade the subject actually is, so that's where experience, intuition and spot metering can help.

when you've a scene which has the sun in the frame, it usually drastically underexposes the ground, because it's trying to push the exposure down so much to get the average to 18% grey. if you meter with no ground in the frame, you'll get an exposure which means the sky will be 18%.

leaving shots with the sun in the sky aside, what the camera should really be measuring is the amount of light falling *onto* the subject, not the amount being reflected *from* it. one way around that is to buy an ambient lightmeter, but if you're just starting out, that may be a $50 solution to a $5 problem.

but one thing to bear in mind - if you're taking a photo of dappled shade, say, there's one 'correct' exposure for the patches in sunlight and one 'correct' exposure for the parts in shade. choosing the compromise between the two is part of the fun.

mrboswell

mrboswell wrote: »

Don't forget to learn to use "exposure lock" because you can use spot metering and lock the exposure, but then you can recompose the shot with the locked exposure.

Any idea how to do that? I've an olympus E-420 and a Canon 20D and can figure it out on neither of them. I believe the button is the AEL/AFL button that you press to lock the exposure?

Whenever I press or hold it, once I move the camera it's away off doing it's own thing again. It's fairly annoying. Both manuals from what I remember just say to press the button when you have your desired exposure, but it's not happening for me?

mrboswell

Deleted User wrote: »

Any idea how to do that? I've an olympus E-420 and a Canon 20D and can figure it out on neither of them. I believe the button is the AEL/AFL button that you press to lock the exposure?

Whenever I press or hold it, once I move the camera it's away off doing it's own thing again. It's fairly annoying. Both manuals from what I remember just say to press the button when you have your desired exposure, but it's not happening for me?

Sounds about right but could it be the "zoom out" button? When it locks you should see an asterisk in the camera window.

quilmore

you could use it to outline your subject

oshead

elven wrote: »

I glare. Why were you fighting with it? Did someone tell you it's bad?

I agree with Elven on this. If the glare is there, try to use it to your advantage.

To be completely honest, I don't really like the glare in that or Elven's photo. I think the glare takes away from the image and makes it very soft or difficult to look at.

I think both photos would look better with no glare in the image, but again, that's just me and we all have our personal preferences.

It's probably something I'll come to appreciate later, but at the moment it's just not my thing at all.

the_tractor

To glare or not to glare.

Some like it some don't.

In some shots it looks great, others it doesn't.

It's all down to the glass.

To reduce it, ensure your lens is clean, and remove a filter if you have it - they add to the glare, and also try composing the image so the glare is not affecting the shot too much.

I like the pointed-star effect in sunrise/set shots, so use the smallest aperture you can.

bullpost

Deleted User wrote: »

Any idea how to do that? I've an olympus E-420 and a Canon 20D and can figure it out on neither of them. I believe the button is the AEL/AFL button that you press to lock the exposure?

Whenever I press or hold it, once I move the camera it's away off doing it's own thing again. It's fairly annoying. Both manuals from what I remember just say to press the button when you have your desired exposure, but it's not happening for me?

I've got the Olympus E300 which is an older model than yours , but that's how its done. Once you've metered you press and hold the AEL button and then refocus or recompose and as long as you keep the button pressed you'll lock the exposure.

Chorcai

Deleted User wrote: »

Any idea how to do that? I've an olympus E-420 and a Canon 20D and can figure it out on neither of them. I believe the button is the AEL/AFL button that you press to lock the exposure?

Whenever I press or hold it, once I move the camera it's away off doing it's own thing again. It's fairly annoying. Both manuals from what I remember just say to press the button when you have your desired exposure, but it's not happening for me?

http://www.cleaningdigitalcameras.com/pdf/EOS20DIM-EN.pdf

pg 86

dave66

Deleted User wrote: »

Also, for anyone who cares; this is pretty much everything else I took this morning, that was worth keeping;

Like this one a lot!

duffarama

bullpost wrote: »

I've got the Olympus E300 which is an older model than yours , but that's how its done. Once you've metered you press and hold the AEL button and then refocus or recompose and as long as you keep the button pressed you'll lock the exposure.

E410 and E620 here, hit AEL/AFL and you'll see the letters appear in the viewfinder. There is a sequence to it which you can change in the menu. So you may need to press more than once for EL rather than FL.

It's all explained well in the manual.