I was keen to get more experience with my new DLSR, we were having a very hot weekend in May here in east Sussex.  The hottest day on records and the daytime was too hot and bright for a hike.  So I decided to head to the Firle on the south downs late afternoon to practice some landscape photography and try and get a sunset over the South downs.

Camera Crisis

I had been having a camera crisis of which I will go into more detail in another post.  But to cut a long story short I had just purchased a new canon DLSR Canon 1263C036 EOS 80D Body Only Digital SLR Camera – Black.
I nearly stepped up and went full frame with the Canon EOS 6D Mark II Digital SLR Camera – Blackbut that meant shelling out a few more grand as would have had to get new lenses filters etc.

Still the 80D was a big improvement over my aging Canon 700D which had liquid ingress on the sensor and cost too much to repair so may as well get a new camera.

PhotoPills Hyperfocal

I parked up on Bo Peep car park which I had visited a few months previous and caught a beautiful sunrise looking east but I was heading in the other direction west to try and catch a sunset.

I was having focusing issues with the new camera and was keen to experiment using the hyperfocal distance.  For calculating the hyperfocal and subject distance I recommend using Photopills on your mobile phone.

Where the sun will set

I had a good idea exactly where the sun would set on this beautiful evening in early May.  Somewhere just over the hills left of Lewes in east Sussex.  You can use the planning module in Photopills to calculate where the sun will set and rise also the moon for any day in the year.

At home on my PC I prefer to use the Photographers Ephemeris.  Its quite a hike from Bo Peep to Beddingham hill pass firle where I was planning to catch the sunset.  It not help with me keep stopping to take landscape photographers looking north west.  Problem was though with the sun low and behind my own shadow and that of the camera and tripod kept getting in the foreground.

South Downs Sunset from Beddingham

From Beddingham hill and with no time to spare I just managed to get setup as the sun was about to set behind the south downs in the distance.

I was using a 3 stop reversed graduated neutral density filter for the sky and to cut out the brightness of the sun, which seems to have worked for this shot. The cowslips have come out well in the foreground.  I recently read cowslips are now rare so its good to see a good crop of them.

It not take long for the sun to dissapear from view behind those hills of the south downs and for the golden hour to turn into the blue hour.

Such a beautiful sight, much prefer to spend my Saturday nights here alone without sorrow.  I really want to get into camping next and spend the whole weekend outside.

Heading back to the car park at Bo Peep bostal and the light is fading rapid.  Just manage to catch one more photograph of light trails of traffic on the A27 in front of mount Caburn.   Next stop Alfriston for a pint on the way home.