Sunrise at Lanikai

I went to shoot the sunrise at Lanikai with Da Crazies 2 weeks ago. Kenway picked me up at 5:00am and we headed over to Lanikai to meet up with Reid. It was slightly drizzly by my house and we were hoping the rain wouldn't be waiting for us when we got to Lanikai. We got to Lanikai around 5:20am and the ground was dry. We headed over to the beach and saw Reid doing some long exposure shots of the lights in Kailua. The sky was pretty cloudy and the horizon wasn't very clear...it didn't look very promising.

Since it was so cloudy there wasn't much chance of catching any of the normal morning colors. To keep myself entertained I decided to do some long exposure shots of Kenway and Reid, just to see what I'd get. The sun hadn't come up yet so the light was still pretty low. This first shot was taken with a 5D, 24-70mm lens, ISO 100, aperture was f/4.0 and shutter speed was 5 seconds.

The sky was starting to lighten up some so this next shot was only a 2 second exposure. The other settings were the same. I think Kenway was having trouble with one of his tripod legs.

Once the sky had gotten light enough, I turned my camera towards the horizon to see if there was anything worth shooting. The clouds were still thick and gray over the horizon and it didn't look like it would clear up anytime soon. In fact, we could see it was raining pretty heavily out over the ocean.

There was a lot of movement in the clouds and the horizon started to clear a bit and the sun finally broke through. I put my Lee Filter holder on my 5D and stacked all 3 ND filters I had and took a few shots of the sunrise just as the rain started falling on us. Yeah, it was that kind of morning.

We found shelter next to a fence and waited for the rain to stop. After about 5 minutes the rain let up and we went back to the beach to see if there was anything worth shooting. Kenway and Reid starting taking a few pictures when it started to rain again. We ran back to the fence and waited again. When the rain let up we went back to the cars and then we headed to Boots and Kimo in Kailua for a nice breakfast.

Lately I've found myself thinking too much about getting more gear and not thinking about making better pictures. So I've decided to go back to basics (again) and will be shooting with my XTi and the kit lens for the next few weeks. I also plan to read some eBooks by David du Chemin to get some inspiration and eBooks by Mitchell Kanashkevich and Guy Tal to help me improve my post processing.

Waihole Sunrise

A few weeks ago I got my Lee Filters graduated neutral density (GND) filter sets and was eagerly looking forward to using them at the next sunrise shoot. To prepare myself, I read a few web pages with tips for using GNDs and took a few practice shots from my backyard to get used to setting them up and figuring out what exposure settings to use. Then I contacted Kenway and asked him where we would be shooting the next sunrise from. He said he wanted to go back to Waihole again...that worked for me.

First shot of the morning.

I met up with Kenway and Reid at the Temple Valley Shopping Center parking lot...at 5:30 in the morning! No wonder our other photography friends call us "Da Crazies". Reid and I jumped into Kenway's car and we all headed out to Waihole. The sky was already starting to lighten up as we drove down Kamehameha Hwy towards the beach park. There was some vog that morning and we were hoping it would lead to some nice colors as the sun rose.

Adjusted the white balance to create a cooler image.

Once we arrived at the beach park we quickly found our spots and got our tripods set up. There was some color showing on the horizon along with some clouds, but at least it wasn't raining. I only brought my 24-70mm that morning (felt like keeping it simple this time) and attached the Lee filter holder to it. I put on a 2 stop hard GND and starting shooting the pre-dawn sky.

Adjusted the white balance to get this bluish/green image.

I really didn't know what I was doing with the GNDs and I was mostly just experimenting with the exposure settings. I also tried stacking the GND and ND filters to see what that would do to my images. I was mostly in learning mode and wasn't concentrating too much on the final images...playing around with the GNDs while shooting helped me get comfortable with them and I'm sure I'll be concentrating on creating better images next time around.

Adjusted the white balance to get this greenish/blue image.

After I got home I went on the computer and went through the morning images to see what I got. I had many similar images because I was shooting the same scenes at several different exposure settings. Kinda boring, but it was nice to see that the GND filters kept the sky from blowing out like in some of my images from previous sunrise shoots. Sorting through the shots didn't take very long.

Adjusted the white balance to get this greenish/yellow image.

I haven't been very satisfied with my post-processing results lately and been feeling like I need to push myself a little more in order to keep growing as a photographer. I told myself to be less conservative during this post-processing session and tried to have a little more fun. I kept thinking about how much color Kenway gets out of his images and that inspired me to go for it. 

Adjusted the white balance to get this reddish/orange image.

I've been reading about how other photographers analyze their photos and how they go about post-processing them. I have several eBooks by Mitchell Kanashkevich and I like how he explains why he processes his images the way he does. Every adjustment is done to clarify or improve the message or story he is trying to say with his photos. That's something I definitely need to work on.

Adjusted the white balance to get this cotton candy image.

I still can't get my images to be as colorful as Kenway's, but I shouldn't be trying to imitate him anyway. I really should be trying to process the images in my own way...my own style. My colors tend to be less bold than Kenway's and maybe that's just how it's supposed to be. After all, I'm not Kenway and I don't think, see or feel the way he does. Still trying to find myself photographically.