April began with the Easter bank holiday and I was getting bored. Initial plan was maybe a blue hour shoot from Beachy Head but looking east over the lights of Eastbourne town below.
Eastbourne Blue Hour
With the days getting longer, sunset was not until around 7:30PM. Arrived around 5:30PM and wanted a good scout of the location to find the best composition of Eastbourne town during blue hour when the coastal town lights up.
Path to Belle Tout Lighthouse
Had some time to kill before blue hour and took some footpath across the south down towards Belle Tout lighthouse. With most of the interest in the distance was shooting exclusively with the 70-200mm lens.
It was very windy and exposed on top of the south downs and glad I chose to wear 3 layers. In the distance behind Belle Tout lighthouse you can just make out the wind farm on the East Sussex coast.
Beachy Head Sunset
From the clouds it looked like sunset was going to be good, so may have to change plans. Returned to the car and decided to drive down Beachy Head road and check out various locations for the sunset. Still effectively scouting out the Beachy Head area. Having been a few times recently but more for sunrise rather than sunset.
Although some low to medium clouds there were none on the horizon and the sun would become fully exposed.
I set up behind the Beachy Head pub. Got my tripod too close to the fence and got an electric shock! Due to the high dynamic range of light, was auto bracketing 3 shots, 2 stops apart using various apertures from F11 to F22. On the back of the small screen the photos looked good. Aware from this position sun flare was a potential problem. In these brief moments of natural beauty there is very little time to juggle all the parameters and nail the exposure. But I was now having a glorious time and felt so good to be outdoors!
Too Windy Motion Blur
Post processing the images taken that evening and with hindsight, I screwed up. With the wind and a big telephoto lens hanging off the end of the camera, the shutter speed was too slow! With slight motion blur due to the wind, the images look a little soft. With bracketing 3 shots, the longest exposure was not useable. Consequently the foreground is a little too dark. It was not necessary to have such a long exposure. Could of turned up the ISO to 400+ and dropped the aperture to F8 or below and got a much faster shutter speed and sharper image.
Moving further south could of got Belle Tout lighthouse into the frame along with Seaford head in the background. Stayed at the location well past sunset into blue hour. Without high clouds there was no light show after sunset.
Sunset Best Location
So would seem the best location for a sunset on Beachy head are the most popular spots which landscape photographers tend to avoid if they can. There are various carparks all along Beachy Head road facing west where people park up and come to watch the setting sun, you not have to pay after 6pm. Lessons learnt, shall return and still on my to-do list, Eastbourne town during blue hour…