Arrive 30 minutes before sunrise. The colour before the sun appears is often better than the sunrise itself.
18-150 · 18–35mmNo filterHood on
- Mode
- Av
- Aperture
- f/8 – f/11
- Shutter
- camera decides
- ISO
- Auto (100 in this light)
- Exposure ±
- −⅓ to −1
- Drive
- Single
- Focus
- Servo · Whole area · tap the horizon or a foreground rock
Do this
- Hood on, polariser off — it does nothing when the sun is in front of you and can add flare.
- Turn the grid on and put the horizon on a line, never dead centre. More sky if the sky is the story; more sea if the sea is.
- Dial exposure compensation to −⅓. If the sky looks pale on the screen, go to −1. The camera wants to make a sunrise grey; you're stopping it.
- Put something in the foreground: rocks, the pier, a person's silhouette. A sunrise on its own is a postcard.
- Shoot every few minutes for half an hour. The light changes completely, and you don't know which minute is the best one until you compare.
- Turn the camera vertical for at least a third of them.
If it goes wrong
- Sky washed out, white where the sun is
- More negative compensation: −1, even −1⅔. The foreground going dark is fine.
- Everything blurred
- Too dark for handheld — the shutter has dropped below 1/30. Brace on a wall, or wait ten minutes for more light, or use the tripod.
- Flare — coloured blobs across the frame
- Hood on, shade the lens with your hand, or move so the sun sits behind a rock or the pier.