My first Sunrise

[Meekminx]

Hello Wolves

Indeed, this is my first sunrise experience (at 24 years old!). My brother in law needed to film a sunrise for his class, and was nice enough to take me along. At 4:30am, I was wide-eyed and bushy tailed! Brought muffins, coffee, and layers of clothing! We went to a park that used to be an old quarry. We climbed up to a spot called the "King and Queen's Seat", which was this granite rock mountain. I swear Pride Rock (read: Lion King) was all I could see when we got to the top!

Even though it was a plane, and not a shooting star, I love how the camera picked it up and that it was centered above the mountain!

I am requesting C&C on this, but before we begin, I just want to say that I was so happy to get my settings 'decently' right on the spot. My Brother in law helped make exposure 'click' and I played around like crazy!

Nikon D5000
Full Manual Mode
Shutter speed- 1/10 second
Aperture- f/11.0
Focal Length- 18mm
ISO- 200
Sadly, this was not taken with a tripod (need to save up some more for the manfrotto!). Handheld, very little wind (just a slight breeze).


What I would change-

Photoshop is loading at the moment, so when it loads, I'm going to crop the bottom so the Pride Rock isn't showing.

Tripod

Clouds- I would love to go back on a morning that had more clouds to capture the color. This is impossible to know before hand (which is why my brother in law ended up going to this location twice in one weekend. The morning before it was cloudy and completely overcast. He was one tired guy)​

What do you think?

 

[Meekminx]

No love? ouch!

 

[LuckySe7en]

I think the empty space on the bottom is a bit distracting. Do you have any others where the sun was a little stronger?

 

[Scuba]

I would agree I would like to see a little more light and like you said some clouds. Also, I would crop some of the darkness out of the bottom and make it more like a panorama since there really is only color just above the horizon. So maybe a little off the top and a lot off the bottom. Finally, straighten the horizon.