My wife Liz and I often visit the Marine Lake at West Kirby for a stroll around the somewhat surreal dyke followed by a view of the sunset out over the Irish Sea.
On this particular occasion however, the weather turned on us and we finished our circumnavigation of the lake under heavy cloud, wind, and increasingly strong drizzle.
A cup of hot coffee back at the car soon warmed us up again, as I debated with myself whether or not it was worth setting up my camera and tripod in the somewhat forlorn hope that we would actually see a sunset through the encircling gloom.
In the end, the good old protestant work ethic won out and I dutifully assembled all the gear needed to shoot stills for a time lapse sequence, should the sun put in an appearance.
Well, no sooner had I set my good old Canon 5D up in the lee of the car's tailgate, to stop it getting soaked and blowing away, than a streak of red appeared in the sky near the horizon so I started shooting.
After a couple of minutes a gap opened up in the clouds and an angry red sun appeared over Hilbre Island, sinking rapidly towards the horizon and clipping the Colwyn Bay wind farm on its way down.
Fifteen minutes later it was all over, the sun had disappeared and the sky had resumed its uniform grey appearance.
But for that brief moment in time the light was magnificent, and I'm so glad I bothered to wait and prepare for it.
Filename - sunset timelapse 10.mp4
Camera - Canon EOS 5D
Lens - 100-400mm zoom @200mm
Exposure - 1/8sec @f11, ISO100
Location - West Kirby Promenade, Wirral
This clip - HD 720p
Clip duration - 20 seconds at 25 frames per second.
Shooting interval - 2 seconds
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