We took Friday off and went to the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR, Brigantine Division in Oceanville, NJ. We arrived before sunrise to be ready to photograph. I wanted to capture the pre-sunrise or Dawn along with the Sunrise, hopefully with birds flying through it. Sometimes Dawn is more interesting than the actual Sunrise. I was trying for a multi-shot vertical panorama Sunrise with a long lens to capture mainly the sky without too much foreground. The feature image is a 5 shot vertical panorama shot with a 400mm lens. I waited for the sun to be behind the clouds because I was using a Canon 400mm DO Lens (Diffractive Optics) which will flare when pointed at the sun. Then I concentrated on single shot images with the 400mm and adding in some with 17mm through 105 using multiple lenses.These will be posted later. Warning! Do not look directly into the sun, especially with a telephoto lens. You can and will damage your eyes! I used live view or focused off to the side then estimated where I should aim the camera. On the panorama, I just shot to one side and moved to the other side, not looking through the viewfinder.

Grasses lit by Sunrise 400mm, handheld, f/7.1, 1/640 sec, -0.33 exposure comp, ISO 800

High Flight of Egrets in Sunrise

Dawn, pre-sunrise, skyscape

Flight of Egrets at Dawn