# US Marine Corps War Memorial - Sunrise (C&C Welcome)



## Braineack (Apr 9, 2014)

Woke up early to catch the sunrise over DC.  Been wanting to do this for a long time.  Met with a bunch of challenges and learned from the experience.

was out for about an hour, and was happy with these two shots:





US Marine Corps War Memorial Sunrise by The Braineack, on Flickr







C&C is welcome and appreciated.


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## tirediron (Apr 9, 2014)

Nice images; did you use a G-ND on these?


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## Braineack (Apr 9, 2014)

tirediron said:


> Nice images; did you use a G-ND on these?



No; I wish i had one.  I used my CPL and I'm glad I at least had that.  It was very apparent that a GND or any extra ND filter would have been very beneficial.   The shots with my 70-200 were unusable without anything on it, I forgot my step-up ring to fit my other CPL to it.


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## CdTSnap (Apr 9, 2014)

Only one I would have tried is putting the directly behind the troops to get that glow around them, but nice!


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## Braineack (Apr 9, 2014)

I tried.  here's the problem:





Even the one I posted I had to clean up a bit. 




there wasn't any real angle or vantage I was happy with.


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## CdTSnap (Apr 9, 2014)

Ah yeah I see your point , almost not bright enough to get the effect, I wonder if a lower shutter speed may have helped?


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## pjaye (Apr 9, 2014)

I like them both, but really love the first one. I think the darkness of it lends itself to the feeling I get when I see these monuments. A sadness, for all the fallen heros. Military factors large in my family and I have a huge respect for them. Nicely done.


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## Braineack (Apr 9, 2014)

CdTSnap said:


> Ah yeah I see your point , almost not bright enough to get the effect, I wonder if a lower shutter speed may have helped?




Oh i was bracketing, just picked a random frame.  I was mainly talking about the tree 


But I was already shooting at iso50 and F11, so I needed a ND filter desperately.


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## CdTSnap (Apr 9, 2014)

Braineack said:


> CdTSnap said:
> 
> 
> > Ah yeah I see your point , almost not bright enough to get the effect, I wonder if a lower shutter speed may have helped?
> ...



Ohhhhh... see now I do skywalker


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## Braineack (Apr 9, 2014)

Went B&W with another just now:






I spent more time removing all the nasty spots that showed up from my sensor, than I did on the processing...  I think my body is going back to Nikon soon.


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## DarkShadow (Apr 9, 2014)

They came out nice pleasant on the eyes and there Nice clean images. I also like that you got motion blur of the flag on #2. Nice Job


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## Stevepwns (Apr 9, 2014)

I like all of the pics you have posted in this thread.  The first is a fantastic representation of what it looks like there.   Ive seen a few sunrises there that look just like that.


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## ronlane (Apr 9, 2014)

The very first one is my favorite. Nicely done.


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## AlanKlein (Apr 9, 2014)

Nice shots well done.


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## harishu (Apr 10, 2014)

all nice. first is my fav.


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## harishu (Apr 10, 2014)

could you (or anyone) please explain what type of filters would you use and why in this particular situation?




tirediron said:


> Nice images; did you use a G-ND on these?


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## Braineack (Apr 10, 2014)

harishu said:


> could you (or anyone) please explain what type of filters would you use and why in this particular situation?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



When I tried shooting with a lens without any filters, the sky was a complete wash, and everything looked hazy/blue, and it was incredibly boring and lackluster and none of those shots were any good.

I really needed an GND filter, or any ND filter. The CPL at least removed roughly a stop of light and they make colors pop a bit.  A GND filter would have let me reduce the light further in the sky and let me expose the foreground longer and bring out the detail in both the clouds and foreground.

If I ever try this exercise again, it will most likely only be after purchasing an ND or GND filter Kit.


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## EIngerson (Apr 10, 2014)

Very nice! I was lucky enough to be able to visit Iwo Jima and climb Mt Suribachi. The photo with a view of the whole island is from the exact spot where that flag raising happened. One of the more humbling experiences of my life. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ingerson/sets/72157633036326953/


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## NancyMoranG (Apr 10, 2014)

Very nice. As the sun moves through the year, maybe the angle will work better?
Nancy


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## Braineack (Apr 10, 2014)

NancyMoranG said:


> Very nice. As the sun moves through the year, maybe the angle will work better?
> Nancy



Yeah, I really needed to go out in Oct/Nov.  The skys were much more dramatic and the sun was much further to the left.

These are some of the first landscape shot I've ever attempted; so live and learn.


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## EIngerson (Apr 10, 2014)

What kind of GND are you looking to get?


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## Braineack (Apr 10, 2014)

EIngerson said:


> What kind of GND are you looking to get?



No idea. I'd probably go with one of the those square ones and a variety of NDs if anything.

Landscape photography is really not entirely interesting and/or inherent to me.  I love what other's capture and post here, but it's just not my thing.  I have a myriad list of other things I wanna buy before I end up with a GND 

I'm going to back to the first image I posted and try to rework it a touch.  I dont like the dark area of red next to the sun, and I want to see if I can make the flag cleaner.  This is just a stacked image, I don't really have any HDR software, so I didn't quite get the detail out of the foreground I was hoping for at least, but it's been a long time since I've done any composite shot work like this and I rushed the processing.


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## Braineack (Apr 10, 2014)

Edited the first shot: cleaned up the flag since it was a stack, removed the cranes in the background and a few random object in the scene that were bothering me:


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## memento (Apr 10, 2014)

Ive never managed to climb out of bed that early in the am.
All mine are from pm light.

Well done. I really like the black and white one


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## EIngerson (Apr 10, 2014)

Nice work. love the timing.


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## Braineack (Apr 11, 2014)

Today's sky was so much nicer.  Wish I was out, but there's a gaggle of tourists out already today for the Cherry Blossoms.


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