This was one sunrise when Santa Cruz went nuclear, and it was a total surprise. I had met up with my friend Steve at Its Beach. We started off shooting the blue hour, and as time passed on it seemed clear that there was no gap on the horizon. I decided to get in my car and drive to work. As I was driving down West Cliff I looked in my rearview mirror, and saw a faint glow. I continued driving forward while looking backwards; not safe, and not recommended! The glow increased exponentially ,and then I went into panic mode. I parked my truck near Getchell street, and ran down to the reef. I ended up throwing my camera on my small flexible Joby tripod. I laid on my stomach, and started shooting. The colors just got more intense as the sun ascended. This is one of my favorite takes from that morning. The ocean swell was small, so I didn't get any water motion in the foreground. I'm not complaining at all, but some water motion would have made the shot in my opinion.
I finally scored some cloudless skies along the coast. Third time is a charm. The forecast was for clear skies, so I drove over to the coast arriving at 2 a.m. After setting up my gear, and taking a few shots I realized it was not exactly clear skies. There were ultra thin clouds in the upper atmosphere that I could not see with my eyes. There was only a two minute window during the shoot that gave me clear skies, so here it is. There were an amazing amount of shooting stars on this shoot, so I blended a few of them in. The best part after the shoot was a really nice sunrise, and then walking across the street to Davenport Bakery, and getting a quad americano, and turkey and cheese croissant fresh out of the oven! Nikon 14-24mm Stars shot @ F/3.2 @ ISO 1600 @ 41 seconds Foreground shot @ F/5.6 @ ISO 320 @ 332 seconds Something I learned from this shoot: The Nikon 14-24mm is an amazing lens for capturing the stars, but if you don't hold your hand on the zoom ring while wiping moisture, you end up moving the zoom in. While reviewing my shots on the shoot, I saw that my images were changing perspective, and I realized I was pushing the glass in while wiping. A zoom lock would be a great addition to this lens. Since this shot, I have sold my 14-24mm and shoot with the 15mm Zeiss. I also learned that with full frame cameras you can divide 500 by your mm length, potentially allowing you more than 30 seconds to shoot the stars. 500 divided by 14mm gives you 35.7 seconds. I used this information to lower my ISO and go up to F/3.2. Sharper image and lower noise
