Location: Grandfather Mountain Blue Ridge Parkway Milepost 305
Sunrise on Grandfather Mountain near Linville, NC. Grandfather Mountain has several sunrise opportunities a year and even with fog obscuring the tops, there were some nice shots on the slopes below.
Camera: NIKON D800E
Lens: 28-300 mm
Focal Length: 38mm
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/30 secs
Aperture: f/9
Filters: None
Exposure: Aperture Priority
How I Got This Shot: For this Grandfather Mountain sunrise opportunity, I arrived at the mountain at 6:15 am to news of 40-50 mph winds at the top and completely fogged in conditions at the Mile-High Swinging Bridge. But you never know so to the top I went and quickly realized that the fog was going no where. Thankfully just below the peaks the weather was great so this shot was taken at Sheer Bluff just off the summit road. My camera was mounted on a Gitzo tripod using a cable release connected to my camera-top GPS. Even though this was taken at 38mm, I cropped it right much to highlight this shaft of light moving through the frame. I processed it using Lightroom to set exposure, etc. and to apply a radial filter to emphasize the shaft of light, then into Photoshop where I applied sharpening and then Nik Color Efex Pro to bring out the colors.
For More Information
- Additional photographs by Miles Smith
- Categories where this photo is found: Editor's Picks, Mountain Horizons