Sunrise - Hawk Hill

OBJECTIVE:

Let't take advantage of the Clouds in Bay Area. Sun is lining up nicely at Golden Gate for sunrise. As long as there isn't blinding fog, it should be good.

https://secure.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/3/7/a/5/600_466394245.jpeg

MEETING LOCATION:

HAWK HILL - Continue on Conzelman road till you get to top of the Hill where tunnels are. In the morning, they open the gate about an hour before sunrise. However, I have seen it open both EARLIER and LATER than that. So if you get there, you can either wait for them to open it, or start hiking towards it, takes about 25 min.

Early bird gets the worm! You can find parking easily and bridge lights would still be on and you can hopefully catch some pre-burn or sky colors. Later on close to sunrise time, clouds may light up.

Meet right across from the Tunnels - There is flat area, it is good enough and we don't need to be much more creative than that. Park, setup, shoot!

GEAR:

• Stable tripod

• Shutter release cable

• Lens that can give you some reach 70-120 mm range

• Wide angle lens

• Grad filters are needed when light is bright, but early morning, when bridge lights are on, you need to take filters off or they would smear the light.

• Lens cleaning cloth as it may fog up

• Something to weigh down your tripod

• Headlamp

• Layers to keep warm

If the wind is blowing, stability of the setup becomes critical. So big bulky zoom lenses would become useless in that situation as they shake too much and everything would be fuzzy.

DISCUSSION:

I think based on the conditions it is important to quickly go over the technique. Basically you need to keep the shutter speed up to get sharp pictures.