Shooting the Sunrise with the Lee Big Stopper in Ocean City

A couple of days ago I posted a video of myself shooting the sunrise at the Ocean City pier. I think that I could spend every morning at the ocean watching the sun rise. The sights and sounds just can’t be beat. On my way to the ocean on this day I was not sure what to expect. There was a slight fog, but I thought that it might be useful in the shot. The fog was just low enough to give me a great look here. I still have not gone through all of the photos that I made on my vacation, but so far this one is my favorite shot not involving my family. The colors just seem to jump out at me here.

Shooting with the Lee Big Stopper

This photo would not have been possible without the Lee Big Stopper. This is a ten stop neutral density (ND) filter. What that allows me to do is to shoot with a slow shutter speed. That slow shutter speed gives me that silky smooth water. It just makes it look like I am shooting a calm lake instead of a rough ocean. In the twenty seconds that my shutter was open I was able to really smooth out that water. Had any clouds been in the sky they would have been stretched out a bit as well. This Big Stopper is a game changer. Another factor here that made the photo for me is the fact that the water just made a brief appearance on the water in front of the camera. That gave me enough of a reflective surface to mirror the sun, but not so much that it ghosts.

Editing the Photo in Lightroom 5

For this photos I used a new preset that I really love. It is the blue/yellow polarizer preset from James Brandon. I think that the colors are the finishing touch to the photo. It gives me the look that I want without all of the clarity from the HDR presets that I normally use. I did tweak the sliders a bit to dial it in. The final touch was to add a bit of clarity to just the sand. I didn’t want a sky or ocean with texture, but the sand looked better with the clarity cranked up a bit.