Have set myself a challenge to revisit local locations and photograph them under better lighting conditions. For this trip it was sunrise landscape photography from the top of Mount Caburn on the Lewes Downs in East Sussex.

Mount Caburn Challenge

I have visited Mount Caburn on two occasions before. Back then it was more hiking and scouting rather than prime time landscape photography. Now its less about hiking and more about the best light and composition. I live in an area with a lot of classic views and although visited most, don’t have many landscape photos that do them justice.

No Mist

As with the visit recently to the Cuckmere Valley, I waited for what looked like the right weather conditions for a misty morning sunrise shoot from the top of Mount Caburn. Unfortunately the mist did not materialise.

Chasing the light

Again it was an early rise of 4am with a 40 minute drive to the nearest parking at Glynde a small village at the foot of the Lewes Downs with footpaths leading up. It was also a gruelling 30 minute hike up to the summit of Mount Caburn. I was chasing the light with no time spare could have done arriving 30 minutes earlier.

Mount Caburn Panoramic

Some of the first shots of the east Sussex countryside and the distinctive brow of Bo Peep on the South Downs were a panoramic. My panos are improving, the key is to get the tripod bullhead level and overlap each image by around 50%.

For the above panoramic took 4 frames. For each frame bracketed 3 exposures. Used Lightroom merge tool HDR and Panoramic for the final composition. A little underexposed maybe. But the view from Mount Caburn of the east Sussex countryside is complimented with a panoramic.

Shutterstock Rejects

I thought my dawn landscape photographs of the Cuckmere valley were good but most were rejected by the stock photography site Shutterstock. Their reasons were out of focus and noise. At a closer inspection this was somewhat true.

Sunrise limits

Needed to make improvements on this trip to Mount Caburn. Sunrise is a challenging time to capture the landscape with all the contrast between the highlights and shadows, the deep saturated colours of the sky and the long exposure times. This will push your equipment and sensor to its limits. This is magnified if you start using the telephoto range of your lens.

I changed tactics, auto bracketed 3 shots to capture the dynamic range of light, this would save time and touching the camera although not as precise as manual adjustment. For the longer exposures would also apply automatic noise reduction.

Manual Focus

But the main revelation of the morning was under these challenging lighting conditions cannot rely on auto focusing on my Canon 80D. Checking correct focus is no easy feat in low light on a small 2 inch LCD screen with impaired eyesight. To check the focus on the back of the screen can magnify the intended focal point to its maximum, put on my glasses and use a 2x magnification Loupe.

Could now see a real difference between auto and then manually focusing. Result, sharper images and no more rejects hopefully, pays to do these checks in the field.

Focused on Infinity

Stopping down the aperture to F/11 to F/16 ensured a greater depth of field, even though with these hilltop compositions there is no foreground interest. Focusing was set to infinity on the horizon. With auto bracketing there is no option at least on the Canon 80D to focus stack at the same time. Unless you take another sequence with a different a focus point.

Throw in a panoramic shot too and this becomes mind boggling. It can be done, but needs to be done quick, especially at sunrise as the light is changing every second as is the position of the sun.

Exposure Blending

The intention was always to manually blend the multiple exposures post processing using luminosity masks in Photoshop after some basic edits in Lightroom. All this effort just to take a good landscape photo!

Sunflare

For the first few minutes that the sun rises above the horizon it is possible to include that big ball of light into the composition where its more of a red then orange glow. This is due to the amount of atmosphere it has to cut through before reaching the camera sensor. As it rises higher it gets brighter and more yellow and then you start to suffer from sunflare.

At this point its better to change composition and exclude the sun. Better to have the bright light of the morning sun coming in from a 45 degree angle. From the summit of Mount Caburn there are superb views south of the south downs at Firle and Bo Peep. At this angle its also good to try a polariser but at the time I not think to use.

Light Show Over

That concludes my sunset shoot from Mount Caburn on the Lewes Downs in East Sussex. I not hang around for a good hike I have fully scouted this location before, the best of the light was over.

You can check out my landscape gallery of the south downs and east Sussex here.