I took this photograph on January 24, 2026, at 07:42. The result reflects two fundamental elements of photography: careful planning and familiarity with one’s gear.
As mentioned in a previous publication, I used The Photographer’s Ephemeris to identify a local sunrise location that I could reach in less than twenty minutes. The weather forecast was favourable, and sunrise on that date was at 07:30; the expected temperature was -25°C. Thus, I was expecting to see fog on the unfrozen St Lawrence River. Experience has taught me that arriving at the vantage point at least fifteen minutes before sunrise is essential.
Once on location, I set up my tripod, camera, cable release, and Leica DG wide-angle lens. From experience, I know this lens produces pleasing star effects when used at a very small aperture f/22.
To ensure I captured the full dynamic range of the scene, I programmed the camera to take three exposures with a two-stop increment, allowing me to merge them later into an HDR image in Lightroom.
As the sun began to rise over the distant church, I repositioned the tripod and refined my composition. By using a 16mm focal length on my Leica DG lens, the scene was too wide, so I changed lenses and used my Olympus 40-150mm lens 80-300mm in 35mm eq. I composed and framed the image using a 158mm focal length 35mm eq. With this lens, all layers were compressed and balanced. For the first time, I set the aperture to f/22 on that lens to obtain the star effects.
It is worth asking yourself whether there are interesting locations close to home where you could experience and photograph a sunrise or sunset and become familiar with your gear.
