The final act in a three part drama, this lovely and dramatic sunrise over the iconic Point of Ayr lighthouse on the North Wales coast at Talacre Beach was the culmination of a six hour long shoot on the night of the summer solstice 2022.
The first act in this time lapse extravaganza started at midnight as I set my camera up on Talacre beach overlooking the lighthouse in order to capture the etheral beauty of noctilucent clouds for my Talacre Noctilucent Timelapse #1 video, which took till just after 3am as the sky started to lighten with the coming dawn.
Act two followed shortly after, as the tide raced in, surrounding the lighthouse and quickly covering the beach up to my tripod legs.
But I managed to capture a few hundred still images, before my tripod sank in the wet sand, to make my Talacre Tide Timelapse #5 video.
And finally, with the light clouds above the northern horizon glowing red in anticiaption of the 4.45am sunrise I relocated myself and my camera gear above the high tide line,
Using my Photopills app I carefully positioned my camera to catch the sunrise to the left of the lighthouse, allowing (in theory!) the sun to pass behind the lighthouse as it rose eastwards.
And then it was just a question of setting the camera off on its intervalometer and sitting back to watch the show.
Well, not quite, as right through the hour and a half of filming I was making constant 1/3rd stop exposure adjustments as the sky grew brighter and brighter and the sun rose in the sky, thankfully in the right place!.
In the end I spent six hours stood by my camera on Talacre Beach, from midnight to 6am, loving every minute of such a wonderful collection of sensory experiences, and enjoying seeing the outcome of my efforts in the three time lapse videos that cover the solstice night.
Filename - talacre sunrise timelapse 03
Camera - Canon EOS 6DMK2
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 105mm
Exposure (start of sequence) - 1/100 secs @ f/4, ISO100
Exposure (end of sequence) - 1/3200 sec @ f/4, ISO100
Filters - 3 stop neutral density graduated filter used to reduce the brightness of the sky relative to the foreground.
Shooting interval - 6 seconds
Software - Adobe Lightroom and Premiere Pro
Music - Shattered Paths - Aakash Gandhi
Location - Talacre beach, North Wales
This clip - HD 720p, 30fps (4K and 1080p HD formats also available)
Clip duration - 35 seconds
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2023 unless otherwise stated.