This past week, I spent several nights in cabin on Mt. Nebo. The first two nights, the weather was certainly nice; however, the absence of clouds made for less than spectacular sunsets. But my luck changed on my last night there.
During the late afternoon, a strong line of storms came through the area. The rain continued until about 7:00 that evening. I was hoping the clouds would begin to break and give me a chance to photograph some rainbows, but the clouds continued to linger. Finally, about 30 minutes before sunset, I decided to drive around to see what I could find to photograph.
I drove to an area known as Sunrise Point. When I got there, I was amazed by what I saw. I was actually standing above the clouds! It was something I hadn’t seen before, and it was absolutely incredible. I immediately pulled out my camera and began shooting, and the image above is one of my favorites from that evening.
Taking this shot was actually pretty easy. Because the sun was still obscured by cloud cover, the contrast was well within the camera’s dynamic range, so exposure wasn’t a problem. The main concern was maintaining complete depth of field because this picture needed to be sharp from the foreground all the way to the distant horizon. This image would not have been successful if any part of the photograph was not tack sharp. By using the smallest aperture on the lens, f/22, and focusing on a point about eight feet from the camera at the lens’ 24mm length, I was able to achieve complete sharpness throughout the frame.
Settings: Canon 5D Mk II, 24mm, 0.3 sec, 24mm