Snowy Sunrise on Rannoch Moor

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With the weather forecast of a clear day with scattered clouds after recent heavy snowfalls had us heading into the Highlands of Scotland.  We arrived before dawn at Rannoch Moor with deep snow drifts and frozen lochs presenting us with a beautiful wintry scene to photograph.



A quick recce to find the best, and safe, vantage point before setting the Fuji X-T1 on the Manfrotto 190 tripod in position facing west away from the sunrise towards the mountains.  

 While I waited for the sun to appear I captured the shot above on the 35mm f1.4 with a 20 second exposure of scene before the dawn.

 I then switched to the 10-24mm wide angle zoom to give me a little more flexibility and a Lee 0.6 (2 stop) ND grad in place in preparation for the sunrise.  

 I put the 56mm f1.2 on the X-Pro1 and then switched to the 55-200mm to give me some extra pulling power once the sun came up.  This allowed me to get some close up shots of the sunlight hitting the ridges of the mountains, with the snow being blown by the high winds. 




 As the sun appeared in the east I quickly moved the X-T1 to capture the shot below of the sunlight reflected in one of the small patches of water that wasn't frozen.
I then switched the camera back to the original position to capture a wide angle shot of the sunlight striking the tops of the mountains turning the clouds and the snow pink for a while.  



All too soon the sun had risen and the light was gone but I had the images in the camera. 

 However before I packed up and headed back to the car I took one final shot on the Samsung Galaxy S5 in panoramic mode.


 Next stop on our itinerary was Glen Orchy, so we headed south before turning west.  More on Glen Orchy on tomorrow's blog.

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Location: Rannoch Moor, Highland, UK

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