Landscape photographer Paul De Odorico shares his passion for shooting sunrise seascapes in his home state of Queensland, Australia. He discusses the challenges of capturing the beauty of Golden Hour and a number of landscape photography techniques that he has perfected for ensuring a successful sunrise seascape shoot.
Golden Hour Beach Photography
Being from the east coast of Australia, I am spoilt for choice in terms of interesting locations for sunrise seascapes. We all know that sunrise is a magic time for soft colourful light, as well as dramatic clouds from time to time. But I think it takes more than that to produce interesting images.
Sunrise Seascape Photography Tips
I believe you can’t underestimate the need to know your location and understand what conditions will produce the results you are hoping for. Some locations are better suited to low tide and some to high tide. Some benefit from a higher swell on a high tide and some can’t be shot if the wind is coming from a certain direction due to the sea spray.
One of my favourite locations sunrise seascapes is only suitable when the sunrise coincides with a very high tide and 2-meter plus swell. This may only happen once or twice a year so I am always monitoring the conditions weeks and even months in advance. Other locations only reveal their interesting rock formations right on low tide and others require you to be standing in water up to your waist for the best results.
Beach Sunrise Photography Tips
I like to plan my sunrise seascapes in as much detail as I can to make the most of the limited time. During the week I will keep an eye on the weather, tides, swell and sunrise times and come the weekend I choose a location that best suits these conditions and head off at 3am to see what I can find. In winter the sunrise is as early as 4:15 am, which means a 1am start.
With the explosion of interest in landscape photography in the past few years, more often than not there will be a good number of other photographers out shooting sunrise seascapes at these locations as well. Sometimes this makes things a bit crowded and getting there first helps with staking a claim to a good position.
With that said, most other landscape photographers don’t turn up until just before first light, which is about half an hour before the actual sunrise. In my opinion, this is a bit of a lost opportunity to capture some really interesting images. I like to shoot at least one or two very long exposures while the sky is transitioning from darkness to pre-dawn. I call this time the long light show and I’ve had some worthwhile results.
I always get into position at least an hour or more before first light and start shooting as soon as I’m ready. Of course, you can’t take any kind of meaningful exposure reading as the light and colours will be changing during your exposure. I just have to estimate the exposure time. I have done hundreds of these types of long exposure shots so it works out most of the time.
Camera Settings for Sunrise
Depending on the amount of light coming from the moon I normally start with an 8-10 minute exposure at f/11, ISO 50-100 and then follow that with a 5-7 minute second shot as the light starts to get brighter. If the conditions are suitable I might get a third 2-3 minute shot as well. I may also add a hard-edge grad ND as the sky lightens up. Some winter mornings there can be virtually no wind at all so the clouds are moving very slowly, this is when I take the opportunity to stop down to f/16 and maybe add a 4-stop ND and shoot a 15-minute image. I don’t go longer than 15 minutes as noise and sensor overheating become unmanageable. These 15-minute shots do take a bit of time to post-process to fix up the noise but it’s worth it.
Long Exposure Sunrise Photography
There are a few variables that can really produce some nice results. High clouds and wind of course will give that stretched look to the sky. Water movement adds the silkiness and if the sky is clear, star movement can also be interesting. For me, the really interesting aspect of a 5-minute plus exposure at this time of day is that you can capture the changing colours in the sky. This can result in sunrise seascape images that have some unreal effects.
Of course, there can be some challenges with this technique. Camera movement and sensor noise are always an issue that needs to be dealt with.
To prevent camera movement I look for a very solid location out of the wind for my tripod. I also hang my full camera bag from my tripod and when available I will also stack rocks around the feet of the tripod. Even with all this extra weight added I still occasionally end up with a bit of softness, which can be heartbreaking if the overall image is something special. This just means I have to go back to the location and keep trying.
If the locations and conditions are suitable I also like to do two shots after sunrise as an abstract comparison. I like to shoot across the water into the sun and then take the same image but move the camera horizontally during the exposure. The results can be very dramatic, particularly if both images are displayed together.
