Tower. Richard Meston. Reikan Photography 1. Sunrise at the Tower Park Water Tower

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1 Tower Sunrise at the Tower Park Water Tower Richard Meston Reikan Photography 1

2 Contact / Feedback Information Rich Meston, Reikan Photography The blog is at You can follow me on Copyright 2010 Richard Meston. All Rights Reserved. 2

3 Tower Park, Poole, Dorset. The home of a ruddy great concrete Water Tower. I wanted to make this collection informative, and I was trying to find out information about when it was built, it s capacity, how it s used (how many homes it supplies and under what conditions), but this information is not easily available. I thought I d put it all together anyway. The general theme of this collection is Sunrise, and most images are based around some beautiful sunrises occurring in Autumn All sunrise shots have been taken from a single location my office. And all images feature the Tower. In some, it s the dominant feature. In others, it s merely a recognisable shape on the horizon. I ve detailed the technical information for each picture camera, lens, aperture and shutter speed etc. All images are taken in Manual mode, all handheld but often resting on a window ledge, and the longer focal lengths with IS or OS (where applicable) enabled. 3

4 Complex Sky Canon EOS 5D mark II, EF24-70mm f/2.8l at 42mm, 1/100s at f/5.6, ISO 200, 07:20 on 19th October minutes before sunrise, the sun shines up from below the horizon to catch the light on the higher clouds. The low clouds are still not illuminated, and appear very dark. This image has had a graduated filter applied in software, increasing the contrast of the image above the horizon. The Water Tower can be seen to the far right of the image, on the horizon. 4

5 Parkstone Panorama Canon EOS 7D, EF100mm f/2.8l Macro IS USM, 1/200s at f/10, ISO 100, 07:33 on 16th November 2010 The sun rose 9 minutes ago. Just 9 minutes to set the sky on fire. The light hits the backs of the clouds towards the left of the image, making them appear darker. This was a beautiful misty morning very cold, but the light was fantastic. The image is a panoramic crop rather than a multi-shot panorama. The density of the 7D s sensor means you can still produce fantastic images even after this much cropping. 5

6 Orange Canon EOS 7D, Sigma OS at 400mm, 1/800s at f/8, ISO 100, 07:35 on 16th November 2010 The same day, 2 minutes later, I swapped to a longer lens and captured some of the details of the horizon. The Tower stands almost exactly 5km away from me, and 5000m of atmosphere creates the hazy distortion effect. 6

7 Tower Haze Canon EOS 7D, Sigma OS at 400mm, 1/640s at f/8, ISO 100, 07:40 on 16th November 2010 A cropped shot of the Tower itself, the haze is clearly visible and the closer trees are less distorted. The maintenance equipment can be clearly seen on the top of the Tower. I wondered for many years if it had a lid, and was finally able to answer the question with Google Maps satellite view! You can do the same (I m not going to make thing easy for you, although it s a fairly obvious answer). 7

8 Morning Canon EOS 7D, Sigma OS at 400mm, 1/640s at f/8, ISO 100, 07:40 on 16th November minutes after sunrise, the light starts to lose some of it s redness as the colour fades towards yellow and eventually onwards to white. The sunlight hitting the thin clouds shines through all but the thickest centres, creating floating bright halos. 8

9 Rising Canon EOS 7D, EF100mm f/2.8l Macro IS USM, 1/100s at f/10, ISO 100, 07:34 on 19th November 2010 The centre of the sun broke the mathematical horizon 5 minutes before this shot was taken, and those 5 minutes have brought it to just starting to peek out from behind the clouds. The golden morning light has caught the thin but widespread layer of cloud, creating a beautiful even orange sky. 9

10 Shining Sun Canon EOS 5D mark II, EF24-70mm f/2.8l at 40mm, 1/50s at f/10, ISO 100, 07:35 on 19th November 2010 A wider image, portrait orientation to capture the changing colours of the sky. The intense yellow glow of the sun silhouetting the trees with the Tower almost central, and fading to blue high above. The smaller low cloud above is just beginning to catch the light. 10

11 Glow Canon EOS 7D, EF100mm f/2.8l Macro IS USM, 1/50s at f/10, ISO 100, 07:35 on 19th November 2010 Focussing in on the gap between the two taller trees in the last image, the sky gently fades from deep orange to the beginnings of blue. 11

12 Fire Canon EOS 7D, EF100mm f/2.8l Macro IS USM, 1/100s at f/9, ISO 400, 07:41 on 24th November minutes after sunrise, the sun is still hiding behind the tree but brings all colours between red and blue. Factories are waking and starting to pump smoke into the morning sky. 12

13 Blanket Canon EOS 5D mark II, EF24-70mm f/2.8l at 24mm, 1/80s at f/8, ISO 200, 07:45 on 24th November 2010 A blanket of low clouds almost covered the sunrise, but the spread of the clouds didn t quite make it to the horizon. The light breaks through, creating fiery ripples. 13

14 Ice Canon EOS 7D, EF100mm f/2.8l Macro IS USM, 1/100s at f/5.6, ISO 100, 07:27 on 26th November 2010 Some 13 minutes before sunrise, the sky appears simple, with linear strokes of cloud burning bright orange. The trails left by passing planes catch the brightest light high in the sky. 14

15 Early Flight Canon EOS 7D, Sigma OS at 400mm, 1/100s at f/8, ISO 100, 07:28 on 26th November 2010 The Tower in silhouette as birds fly over and a few twinkling lights from buildings. In just 12 minutes the sun will rise, and 30 minutes after that the day will be well and truly underway. 15

16 Through The Snow Canon EOS 7D, Sigma OS at 352mm, 1/200s at f/8, ISO 100, 09:24 on 2nd December 2010 Something different 1 hour 35 minutes after a sunrise that would only have been visible to the top of the clouds, the Tower sits above the snow tipped trees. 16

17 Flying High Canon EOS 7D, EF100mm f/2.8l Macro IS USM, 1/60s at f/7.1, ISO 200, 07:44 on 11th December 2010 It seems every morning as the sun rises, flocks of birds fly from South to North. This shot is 15 minutes before sunrise, and the lines of birds are already starting to appear. 17

18 These shots were mainly spur of the moment captures. I generally start work around 0700 and at this time of year the sunrise is around I have a window above my head but have to stand to see out, and around sunrise time I always make a point of checking the sky. Many days can start promising but the sunrise can end up dull, and other days there can be no sign of anything interesting until the sun rises above the horizon then the effects can be amazing. It pays to be ready, and I have my 2 camera s in their cabinet next to me as I work. It s worth playing with exposure for sunrise shots. Your camera meter has no idea what you are trying to achieve and the results will be unpredictable especially in Evaluative/Matrix metering mode. Often, the general rule of landscape photography of using a narrow aperture for a large depth of field doesn t apply here, especially for telephoto shots where even at wide apertures the depth of field is plenty. A slow shutter speed captures the light on the duller parts of the sky and the buildings, and a faster shutter speed can help with silhouettes and the beautiful bright areas of the sky. Image stabilisation (IS on Canon lenses and OS on Sigma lenses) is useful for these shots. As I tend to quickly take the shots, I do not have my tripod set up so I am holding the camera in my hand. For longer focal length shots, resting on the edge of the window is helpful, but all my shots of 100mm and over were taken using in-lens stabilisation. 18