Rangitoto Sunrise
Rangitoto Sunrise. 26mm | 3x exposures @ 1.0, 4.0 & 10 sec | f16 | ISO100
The worst behind the lens shot ever.
Last Tuesday I dragged myself out of bed at some ungodly hour and drove out to Murrays Bay with the intention of shooting the wharf there at sunrise.
Imagine my horror, without so much as a drop of coffee running through my system, when I arrived and discovered several people fishing off said wharf. Once the outrage of other people using a publicly accessible wharf to fish off on a picture perfect Auckland morning (and not wanting to shove a camera in their faces) I decided to try my luck further down the beach.
I tried a few different angles but nothing was really grabbing me until I saw this rock pool. I even got to use my tripod half upside down, possibly for the first time.
The final image is a composite of three separate exposures. First, an exposure for the pool itself. Second, a lower exposure for the water. The third was an exposure of Rangitoto island itself, exposing so that the sky wasn't blown out. This exposure was also focused on the island, as opposed to the other two which were focused on the rocks around the pool. I find focus stacking like this is a more reliable way to get an image sharp from front to back instead of working out the hyper focal distance, particularly when you're in a hurry as the light is changing quickly.