The last vacation
Mar, 2020Views
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
This picture was taken during my last vacation in Egypt in an area called "Ras Shaitan" (literally translating to "the devil's head") in south Sinai before the Covid-19 global outbreak and the lockdown that followed it (and hence the name "The last vacation").Time
This photo is one of the dearest photos for me, I have been capturing sunrise and sunset moments for more than 5 years, and for this one, I took around 45 pictures in a period of 30 minutes to make sure I got the right picture. During the 30 minutes, I changed the scene and the settings in different ways, leading me to have the various options I had. That morning was a cold morning on the 8th of February 2020, and the exact time was 07:04 AM.Lighting
Since the picture was for sunrise, the only lighting source was the sun, but the sea also played a major role, being an enormous reflector of light, which led to the amazing effect of the light beam.Equipment
I used my Sony DSC-HX400V with its built-in lens, and my Fotopro Digi-9300 tripod.Inspiration
I have been always a fan of sunrise and sunset photography; therefore, I spent the first couple of days of the vacation studying the location and determining the most suitable frame and time to take the photo. There were a lot of frames varying from the camp land view to the sea view with many options, but waking up earlier to take the last decision based on the weather I decided to take the photo with the hammock and the sea view that I had enjoyed, along with the empty bottle and the table from the camp fire seating we had the night before, as those seemed to truly represent the spirit of the vacation we had.Editing
I usually try to keep the post-processing to a minimum, but as no camera or lens can take the real beauty of a scene as the eye sees it, I do some minimal edits to show the scene as I have seen it. For this picture, I needed to increase the clarity of the picture and to give the objects in it a silhouette effect by increasing the blacks and the shadows.In my camera bag
I have always believed in the saying "the best camera is the camera that you have" as photography is more about the camera person, not the camera itself (but that doesn't mean that better equipment wouldn't have an added value!). Currently, the equipment I have is only my Sony DSC-HX400V, which has a great monster lens with its digital optical zoom that can match a 1200mm lens, and my Fotopro Digi-9300 tripod.Feedback
From my experience, I can say that sunrise and sunset photography require patience, persistence, and the willingness to take a lot of varying pictures for the same location to get the picture you want. You should always watch for the weather, as clouds can make or break your photo, and so do the other factors related to weather. When capturing the sun, make sure to be quick in testing different variations of aperture and shutter speed to capture the picture you want, I usually have the iso fixed at the lowest possible value (for my camera that is 80).
