first sunrise ever -need help with this..

i tried to get a sunrise first time ever, I found landscapes are really hard. I hope to eventually get the hang of this. I am working on a very old laptop, with a screen that is very bad, and basically working blind. I did shoot the sunrise off center, this is just the first one edited, I am waiting until I get home to do the others, as this laptop makes it very hard to do anything.

So how bad did I do for a first time? I found getting focus right tremendously difficult for me......used evaluative and center point was that wrong?

Most of the time sunrises are better when the sun is still below the horizon. Sunlight reflecting off the clouds helps tremendously. For your shot, there's really nothing to look at except the sun so everything else is dark. Also, the horizon is tilted, but that's easily fixed on the computer. Since neither of your cameras have live view (1D-IIn doesn't does it?) then just focus to infinity for this type of shot.

right neither camera has live view when you say to focus to infinity, you're saying to use manual focus? I have always been terrible with manual focusing... so automatic focus will not do in this situation??

Yes, infinity is that horizonal 8 deal on your lens. If you have a strong foreground element, I wouldn't use it. If not, it's fine.

On my 10D, I used to compose the shot, tilt the tripod head until the center AF was basically 1/3 into the frame, focus, switch to MF so it would stay there then recompose the shot. I'd take a shot then zoom in with the LCD to check for sharpness.

If you have a big/close foreground item, you may just want to focus on that. Better to have something distant soft than something really close IMO. In your shot, the foreground stones look soft to me.

A spirit level on the camera's hotshoe will at least get your horizon closer. Tripod, mirror lock up and a remote release all will help with sharpness.

I'm working with a gitzo tripod/markins ballhead and one of those have a level, but this was my absolute first time working in early morning pre-sunrise darkness and I had a tough time seeing the level if the legs were level. I figured there were not and the shots were all off. I am back home, but I have to fly for a wedding shower on weds. and probably won't have time to properly edit the shots with my full photoshop on my desktop. I will investigate a flashshoe level, because maybe that would help my now 50 yo eyes see better in darkness. I had a flashlight with me, it just didn't help me that much seeing what I am doing............I agree the stones look soft while the water looks sharper, and I was able to see that in viewfinder and this is what I was referring to regarding my automatic focus difficulties..........

Hello Pigtailpat,

I really enjoy shooting landscapes especially sunrise and sets. I have been doing some HDR a lot more these days but one suggestion is to keep your ISO as close to 100 as possible. I messed around a bit with your photo but I am one for a lot of color kinda making them more art than journalistic. So here is a copy of my interpretation of your photo.

G

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G -

not bad, I never thought to play that way to that extreme - food for thought....