Sunrise, Miami

Back in March of this year, my wife took a business trip to Miami, Florida and I tagged along for a break. We thought the hotels were a bit pricey when booking them but didn’t realize till we pulled up in front of the Betsy Ross Hotel that we’d picked a Spring Break week! Thankfully, the Betsy was not a Spring Breakers hotel so our stay was quite pleasant.

One of the things I particularly like about winter is that sunrise and sunset occur at more human times. It’s possible to get a full night’s sleep and still be up in time to catch the sunrise. On March 18, 2011, when I took the image above, sunrise was at about 7:20.

For me, a good sunrise or sunset needs clouds or pollution to play against. This day I was rewarded. I went up to the roof of the hotel at around 6:00 am when it was still dark and watched the sky lighten from the east over the next hour and a half, taking a steam of photos through that period. Here the sun is quite high and the EXIF data tells me the image was taken around 7:50 am, about 20 minutes after sunrise.

There’s no filter on the lens at time of capture. For many years I used to slavishly follow the conventional wisdom and use a skylight or UV filter in front of my lens to protect it from dirt and scratching. But as I started to upgrade my lenses to the Canon ‘L’ lenses I started to wonder why I was putting a cheap piece of glass in front of these optical masterworks. Consequently I now go filter-less except for ND filters or polarizers for a given effect.

I’ve processed this image in Lightroom, lowering the brightness to saturate the blues and tweaked the color in Nik Color Efex Pro 4.0.

Production Data

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II (B&H) Limited time Special Offer at $1999.95
Battery Grip: Canon BG-E6 Battery Grip (B&H)
Lens: Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM (B&H) $300 rebate through Jan 7, 2012.
Tripod: Gitzo GT3531 6X Carbon Fiber Tripod Legs – Supports 39.6 lbs (18kg) (B&H)
Ball Head: BH-55 LR: Full-sized ballhead with LR (Really Right Stuff)
Processing: Lightroom 3 (B&H)
Processing: Nik Software Color Efex Pro 4 Complete Edition (B&H)

Note, the complete collection of Nik Software may be better value than buying the pieces separately depending upon what your objective are: Nik Software Complete Collection Software Plug-in for Photoshop, Lightroom, and Aperture (B&H)