P#5 Sunrise Over Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

Shooting Merritt Island early in the day with a telephoto lens

Rob Sheppard: The sunrise picture is photographed down at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. This is a really neat area.

A lot of people go to it for birds. It's right by Cape Kennedy and Cape Canaveral, and they actually shut down parts of this refuge when they have shuttle launches.

It's a very, very pretty area of a typical Florida coastal landscape.

They get a huge number of water birds here but this particular picture was shot right at sunrise, as the sun was coming up over the low areas, the marshes and the woods in the background, shot with a telephoto lens to give the big sun and to get all that color. (click the image for a larger version)

That color is what's there. When you shoot with a telephoto lens, early in the day particularly a day like this with this kind of haze, you'll get that color. And the color is emphasized by using a long telephoto lens. In this case, I think that the lens was probably a 35mm equivalent of around 400mm.

In summary

Enhance the natural beauty of a landscape like Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge with a telephoto lens and shoot when the light is wonderful to capture the color, like of this sunrise.