Here in north Wales, at our latitude of 53°N, the position of sunrise and sunset swings though an arc of about 90° during the course of the year, with the few days around the midsummer solstice being when the sunrise and sunsets occur at their most northerly positions.
Which is a great time of the year to be out on the north facing Wales coastline, with the opportunity, weather permitting of course, to catch both events from the same viewpoint, albeit seventeen hours apart!
So on this particular morning I chose to capture the sunrise from the North Shore promenade at Llandudno, one of my favourite spots due to the fact that, at this time of year, the sun rises behind the huge offshore turbines of the Gwynt-y-Môr wind farm, dotted along the horizon out in the Irish Sea.
On this occasion I opted to use my recently acquired Canon 250D camera, with 4K video capability and a cropped sensor giving me a little extra magnification from my 100-400mm zoom lens.
This camera and lens combo worked very well, with a nice big sun appearing on my camera's viewing screen at just the right spot to include a group of turbines in the composition.
In the end I filmed three video clips as the brightness levels rose, adjusting the exposure accordingly, and then speeded them up and blended them together in Adobe Premiere Pro to create this time lapse effect.
No doubt I'll be using this technique again for other sunrises and sunsets - it worked realy well for me!
Filename - windfarm sunrise timelapse 04
Camera - Canon EOS 250D
Lens (Clip #1) - 100-400mm zoom @ 400mm
Lens (Clip #2) - 100-400mm zoom @ 400mm
Lens (Clip #1) - 100-400mm zoom @ 100mm
Exposure (Clip #1) - 1/50 sec @ f/5.6, ISO100
Exposure (Clip #2) - 1/400 sec @ f/5.6, ISO100
Exposure (Clip #3) - 1/400 sec @ f/5.6, ISO100
Filters - None.
Location - North Shore promenade, Llandudno, North Wales
Music - Lifting Dreams - Aakash Gandhi
This clip - HD 720p, 25fps (4K and 1080p HD formats also available)
Clip duration - 33 seconds
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2024 unless otherwise stated.