Seeking Sunrises on the Maine Coast (Mornings 4, 5 and 6)

As a follow up to my post yesterday showing sunrises from mornings 1, 2 and 3, I have uploaded here three more images.  These are from mornings 4, 5 and 6.  It makes me tired just looking at all these sunrises!

For those interested in those sort of things, the first two were taken with an Olympus E-M1 with 14-54mm zoom lens, and the third image was taken with a Sony NEX-6 with a 30-year old 35-70mm manual Minolta zoom lens.

Morning 4

Morning 5

Morning 6

Seeking Sunrises on the Maine Coast (Mornings 1, 2 and 3)

We were recently up in Maine for a few days along the coast near Blue Hill.  The weather was beautiful.  Though technically autumn, except for the leaves changing colors it felt like summer.  Shorts and sandals were the order of the day.

I like pursuing sunrises in autumn because the sunrise actually comes at a reasonable hour.  In the summer, sunrise on the Maine coast (when we've been there) is about 5:30.  And because some of the best color comes at twilight, I like to get to my "spot" 30 minutes before sunrise.  Argh, that's hard to do.  But in late September sunrise is at 6:30.  This is great news for me.  The biggest problem turned out to be the mosquitoes, even though temperatures were in the 40s and 50's at that hour.

Below is my favorite shot from morning #1.  Not exactly a sunrise shot, as this was taken about 7 a.m.  The actual sunrise, though beautiful, was rather lackluster for a photograph.  But as I returned to our cabin I spotted this.  The sun was still low in the east and gave some nice color on the starboard side of this lobster boat.  I like the overall soft colors of the background.

Morning #2 was just to opposite.  Instead of an uninteresting cloudless horizon, there was a thick layer of clouds which resulted in now sunrise.  However, again around 7 a.m.  the sun did rise above the cloudy horizon and provided this shot looking south.

A Touch of Autumn

Morning #3 was totally awesome.  I took a lot of pictures over a 10 minute period and don't at this point know which one is best.  But the following is representative.  The scene was absolutely gorgeous.

[Photos from mornings 4, 5 and 6 will follow, in tomorrow's blog post... I'm still deciding which ones I like best.]

A Taste of Maine (Moody's Diner)

We just got back from a trip half way up the coast of Maine, to as far as Mt. Desert Island.  The weather was beautiful, with the "worst" day being an overcast day yesterday, while driving back to Massachusetts.

I've started going through my pictures. As always, I take w-a-y too many.   Even so, I don't think I'm too excited about them. Yesterday (a couple of outdoor pictures are below) was overcast with not enough light to bring out bright colors.  Every other day was sunny and frequently cloudless.  I'm not complaining; but the downside of bright sunny days is that light can be very unflattering for photographs, with lots of harsh shadows and bright highlights.

The harshness of the light was especially true because most of my shots were taken during the brightest time of day, from about 10 a.m to about 2 p.m.  I did get up early (about 6 a.m.) each day for the sunrise, so I think I have some good ones taken during the golden hour.  On the other hand, I've never seen a sunrise I didn't like!

For fun and experimentation, I brought along four old manual focus 35-70mm zooms (two Nikons, a Minolta, and a Tamron) with appropriate adapters for the NEX-6.  I took a bunch of pictures with each of these lenses at various aperture settings and at 35, 50 and 70mm focal lengths.  I am looking forward to doing some pixel-peeping comparisons.  I hope the Minolta has the best image quality, as it also looks and feels the best.  If it is the best performer, I will sell the other three on eBay (where I bought them).

Yesterday being our final day in Maine, we stopped for a late lunch at Moody's, a classic diner in Waldoboro.   It was started in 1930, and is located on Rt. 1.

A stop at Moody's for lobster rolls was a great way to end our trip to Maine.

Lobster Rolls, French Fries and Cole Slaw!

Lots of real Maine blueberries and two scoops of ice cream.