Help with sunrise photo please

[nzphil]

<p>Hi All,<br />I am in vietnam on holiday and have beatiful sunrises every morning. I'm having difficulty shooting what I see. Any help would be gratefully received.<br />I have posted an example. I can see the obvious tilting horizon and swimmer in foreground my main issue is that I'd like to capture the colours as the eye sees them - the eye sees very much redder than the photo shows, especially the sun which looks quite yellow in the photo, also would a polarising filter help to make the island clearer<br />Using A900 and sony 80-200 zoom at 200mm</p>

<p>Thanks in advance</p>

[nzphil]

<p>Here's the photo</p><div></div>

[bob_bill]

<p>If you are using auto white balance, it may be compensating from what you saw. Try daylight white balance and chimp one. Or if shot in raw adjust white balance in raw with slider or presets. I like clicking the white balance eyedropper on a neutral color or one with nearly equal rgb values. Or do some color adjustment is ps or plugin. Polarizers have maximum effectiveness 90 degrees from sun. Here you are shooting into the sun. Remember that polarizer will eat 1-2 stops if you are hand holding and watch for it creating any flare. I like the image and am more bothered by the 3 floating objects along left and right side. 3 healing clicks. Same with boat on horizon at left. Did you get a shot when the sun ducked behind the island back lighting it about 15 minutes later? I'm not a land/seascape guy any longer, but might increase cloud/island, water reflection contrast, maybe add a bit of vignette. That's just me. Nice image. Nice high position of horizon line yet keeping swimmer at near lower right power point. I like him silhouetted, cant tell who he is so can picture him being me. Draws me in more. </p>

[dan_south]

<p>Bob is right on the money. At sunset and sunrise, automatic white balance sees all of that yellow, thinks that it's a PROBLEM, and tries to get rid of it. The Daylight/Direct Sunlight preset will interpret the colors more accurately.</p>

<p>If you captured the image as a RAW file you can change the white balance setting after the fact on your computer. You can also straighten the horizon on the computer, but you'll have to trim a little bit off of each edge to do so.</p>

<p>I don't think a polarizer would do much for this shot. The haze adds a nice quality, IMO.</p>

[miguel_martinez4]

<p>Let me add that, if "daylight" doesn't give you the red you wanted, you may try "cloudy" white balance. It's warmer than normal sunlight, but not too much. Sometimes, for some dramatic effects or for Rockwellian colours, you should try "shade" white balance.</p>

[nodpete]

I agree with Miguel, I leave my Sony set on "cloudy" and I shoot a lot of sunrise/sunset pics. Also on the a100 there is a sunset setting on the menu knob. I will sometimes take a meter reading to the side of the sun, and then recompose the shot. It helps bring out the colors. Nice photo by the way.

[dan_south]

<p>Personally, I avoid the Shade preset. Turning a photo YELLOW doesn't make it better.</p>

<p>If you want extra punch in your colors select a "Vivid" or "Landscape" setting on your camera. That will boost color saturation. That combined with a Daylight or Cloudy preset should be plenty.</p>

[gdw]

<p >The tilting horizon is easily fixed in post.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >The swimmer can be cloned out in post although I think the swimmer adds greatly to this photograph.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Capturing the color is simply getting the exposure correct. You have received good advice; shoot on RAW; be sure that the white balance is set on DAYLIGHT and absolutely not AUTO (you can try the CLOUDY and SHADE and then choose which color you prefer but I would stay with DAYLIGHT and do any addition adjusting in post.).</p>

<p > </p>

<p >The polarizer would be of absolutely no help—a polarizer has no effect when shooting directly toward or directly away from the light source. It might reduce your exposure but not the two stops mentioned, that’s at 90 degrees to the source but that is not of any advantage in this situation so don’t use a polarizer.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Is there actual haze between you and the sun? If not it appears that you are getting a lot of flare and should check to be sure the lens is not fogged or smudged. </p>

<p > </p>

<p >Let me give you some actual settings to try with your camera set to MANUAL , DAYLIGHT WB. Since your longest lens is 200mm start with a shutter speed of 1/250 and an aperture of f/11. That is a one stop adjustment from what is basically known as the rule of Sunny 16 (1/100 @ f/16)</p>

<p > </p>

<p >First is am going to start with a caveat: Absolutely do not judge you results on the LCD on the back of the camera, it is not designed for judging exposure and will fail you miserably if you try it. Get the photographs into a computer before you decide which exposure from the bracket is the one that is closest to what you want.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Here is the sequence: First shot 1/250 at f/11. For the second shot change only the shutter speed to 1/500, for the third shot change shutter speed to 1/1000, for the forth 1/2000 and the fifth 1/4000 (if you do not have 1/4000 simply change the aperture to f/16. That will give you a five stop bracket starting with a generalized normal daylight shot. Someplace within that five stop range you are going to find one that is if not exactly what you want, it is going to be extremely close. Check your EXIF and record the shutter speed that is best or closest to exactly what you want. Use that f/stop shutter speed compensation for your next sunrise. </p>

<p > </p>

<p >If you want the final photograph to appear somewhere between one of two of the brackets, then you can do any slight lightening or darkening on the next sunrise by using your EV complementation, plus if it needs to be lighter and minus if it needs to be darker. Do one shot at the settings you recorded including your EV compensation is needed and do one shot at one shutter speed slower and one shutter speed faster because not all sunrises are going to be exactly the same.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Your foreground is going to appear silhouetted as it appears in this photograph but your colors will be much more dramatic which as I understand it is what you are wanting to achieve.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >And the last caveat and I know it sounds preachy, but these are things you need to learn about your camera before you go on holiday. LOL </p>

[nzphil]

<p>Thank you all for taking the time to post these helpful suggestions. I'll try the shot again tomorrow with WB at daylight and I'll take some bracketed exposures.</p>

<p> </p>

[david_henderson]

<p>I have a somewhat different perspective. </p>

<p>First if you shoot as raw it simply doesn't matter what white balance you choose, since it isn't actually applied to the image till you render it and you can change it at that point to whichever looks best.</p>

<p>Second I think the problem here is exposure and that the difference between the brightness of the sun and the sky and water is leading to the camera trying to expose both correctly but failing on both. The sky and water are too dark making the picture lose vibrancy and the sun is overexposed which is why it looks pale yellow rather than red and if you look closely there's likely to be a thin bright red rim around the sun, which might also of somewhat irregular shape when viewed closely. In short the brightness range of your scene is greater than your sensor can cope with. </p>

<p>In these circumstances bracketing will not help you either, because it won't be stretching the range of brightness that the sensor can cope with. What bracketing does is move the same dynamic range up and down the light/dark scale, thats all.</p>

<p>So what can you do? Well the first thing is to shoot when the scene brightness range is smaller. Getting up a little earlier and photographing when the sun is on or just above the horizon is one way to do that, for the sun picks up brightness really quickly as it rises. You're likely to find the sun is actually redder then, too. Shooting before the sun comes up at all is probably even better, and you'll arguably get the best sky colours just before sunrise. This is the best and easiest solution.</p>

<p>Alternatively you can time your exposures for when the sun is partly veiled by thin cloud, reducing its brightness</p>

<p>Or you can take several shots at different exposures and merge them using HDR/masking techniques. This requires all the shots to be taken on a tripod, and quickly, since clouds move. It also requires that you learn at least one of the merging techniques. I think your best plan would be to get up a half hour earlier , take a range of shots , and stop before the sun reaches an elevation like your attached shot unless there's some cloud around to veil it. </p>

<p> </p>

[nzphil]

<p>Thanks for your comments David,<br>

I did get a few shots as the sun rose from behind the island, however the colours weren't really anything much until the sun was a bit higher (maybe 7 or 8 minutes later) also the nice reflections on the water didn't appear until the sun was pretty much fully visible. Maybe I just need a better day and cloud conditions to get that earlier photo with nice sky. Unfortunately the tripod stayed home this trip due to packing restrictions. I did shoot raw and can't get the genuine colour by playing with WB.</p>

<div></div>

[whiggy]

<p>Not sure what ISO you were shooting at, but sometimes high ISO can dull the colors....try shooting at the base ISO (100 or 200) or one stop up.</p>

[nathan_meador]

<p>I think David is right, it looks more like a problem of exposure. Not sure what exposure mode you used, but looks like the camera tried to expose for the ocean, which over-exposed everything and washed out all your color. You might try bracketing your shot, or shoot in manual and adjust the exposure to the brightest area of the picture. A polarizer wouldn't do anything for the shot imo.</p><div></div>

[radiotyson]

<p>I don't know how your camera works but on my Pentax K-x I can take a shot, and then adjust the WB and the LCD displays an approximation of what that should would look like if I took it again with new white balance.... Helps alot for these tricky photos.</p>

[nzphil]

<p>Thanks again for the exra comments.</p>

<p>I did a few experiments with exposure and found that f11 at 1/500 gives good image of the sun and good colour reproduction (unfortunately that exposure leaves the rest of the picture dark). Good learning for me though, thanks all.</p><div></div>