Sunrise Over Frozen Lake Erie
Woke up early one morning and decided to take the camera out. Got to the lake as the sun was breaking the horizon.
Woke up early one morning and decided to take the camera out. Got to the lake as the sun was breaking the horizon.
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Nov, 2015Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
I shot this image on a cold winter morning on the shore of Lake Erie near Monroe, Michigan. It had been awhile since I shot a sunrise, so I thought I would take the weather as a unique opportunity to do so.Time
It was early morning, what time, I can't exactly remember. But, I was out before the sun rose in an attempt to get the sun breaking the horizon. My wait at first seemed rather disappointing as the sun never poked through the clouds at the horizon. I nearly packed it all in and went home right then and there but decided against it in hopes I could at least salvage the day by getting something.Lighting
The goal was always to silhouette the tree. I knew that wouldn't be difficult with the sun coming up behind it. The trick was lighting the image enough so I had something to work with in post. I needed to not blow out the highlights to preserve the details in the clouds, but also not underexpose so much as to loose the foreground and the reflections on the snow on the lake in the background.Equipment
This was shot on a Canon 7D using a kit 18-135 f3.5-5.6 lens. The camera was mounted to a tripod.Inspiration
The tree had so much character. It needed to be captured, but it was the sunrise playing with the clouds and reflecting on the snow/ice of Lake Erie in the background that really made the image. Trees are probably one of my favorite subjects, and I really loved the shape of this one. Being able to accentuate the tree with the lighting of the clouds really pushed it over the top for me. I remember frantically checking and rechecking the focus on the camera screen through live view zoomed in to 10x. I switched the lens to manual focus to ensure that the camera didn't pick the clouds instead of the tree. A simple 3 shot 2/3 stop bracket gave me the assurance I had the image.Editing
Every image I do has post-processing to it, even if it very minor color correction of cropping but always enabling Lens Profile and removing Chromatic Aberration. I use Lightroom almost exclusively as it very user friendly and does nearly everything I need. The first thing I did was to crop in just a little closer to the tree as there were other trees that were crowding the image I wanted out. The next step was to increase the clarity, vibrance and saturation a bit (10+ each) to give it some extra pop. I then added a graduated filter to the bottom of the image and adjusted the exposure up .87 to lighten up the snow in the foreground the ice in the background. I put the center line right on the horizon. Not much was required in post here.In my camera bag
I don't have a lot of equipment, and it has changed quite a bit since I took this shot. In fact the 18-135 has since been sold to another aspiring photographer (who I hope is enjoying it) and the money used to complete my current equipment list. I have a Lowepro backpack that I use exclusively now and it manages to carry everything I have. So, that means the Canon 7D takes up residence at the top of the bag with my Tamron 70-200 f2.8 VC connected to it. Sitting just to the left of that is my Sigma 17-70 f2.8-4.0 Contemporary lens and below that is my Sigma 50mm f1.5 DG. To the right of my Tamron is my Canon Speedlite 580 EX and a set of Kenko Extension tubes. I find this covers just about every situation I need. But, when I find myself just taking out the camera (no bag) I usually go with just he 17-70 connected. It focuses close, it sharp, and fairly quick. Plus it provides me with a range that is extremely useful. When I want to challenge myself, I leave the 17-70 and just bring the 50mm. When I do have to leave equipment at home, I struggle greatly with which piece to take because I love the capabilities of all my equipment.Feedback
For me this image was more about preparation then skill. I am a self-taught photographer (learned on film through trial and error), so often times I go by "feel" and not by rule when it comes to exposing an image. In terms of preparation, I made sure I went to bed earlier than normal the night before, knowing I would be getting up earlier than normal. I had all my equipment packed up, 3 freshly charged batteries ready to go, and plenty of warm clothes laid out to put on. I had checked sunrise times the day before and calculated drive time to make sure I got up early enough to get there and get set up. I had been to this location before and knew this was the tree I wanted to focus on. Wanting to compress the foreground/background and to make sure the tree stayed true in aspect, I set up away from the tree a decent distance and then zoomed in to get the right feel (this ended up being 100mm). I used center weighted evaluative metering and then under exposed the image about 2/3 of a stop so as to avoid overexposure. Then I shot a 3 bracket burst with a 2/3 stop offset to help ensure I exposed the image properly. This meant that my overexposed bracket was actually what the camera had metered in the first place, so if I was wrong in misjudging the meter, I still had the camera's choice. To make sure the image was as sharp as possible, I used aperture priority and stopped down to f9. Any more than that and I would have been concerned about lens flare any less and I would have moved out of the lens' (what I thought) optimal depth of field. I shut off autofocus and clicked on the live view, zoomed in the view to 10x and manually focused the lens on some branches so I knew I had nailed the tree.
