Wild Ponies Grazing As The Winter Sun Slowly Sets

Wild ponies of Chincoteague grazing at sunset. (click to enlarge)

I don't often photograph sunrises or sunsets.  After 51 years photographing, I've made my share and, although they are beautiful, I have enough images of them.  I'd rather just watch, enjoy and try to remember the extraordinary ones.

However, during my recent trip to the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge on Virginia's Eastern Shore, famous for its wild ponies (made famous from the book Misty of Chincoteague, by Marguerite Henry), I was photographing a large group of Great Egrets gathered for the night in some wetlands to my east when I happened to see a group of the wild ponies make their way just across the small canal to my west.  They were grazing and slowly moving north.  This ordinary sunset now had an element of uniqueness.  I thought to myself that this sunset is the exception and I had to make a few images.  But how do I capture the detail in the sky with the bright sun as well as the detail in the foreground and the ponies?

For this image, I used my Nikon Z7II with the 24-120mm f/4. lens.  I shot two bracketed frames at f/16 (to create the starburst effect), one exposed for the ponies and foreground at 1/80th second and one three stops underexposed for the sun and sky at 1/640th second.  The  ISO was set at 100 and the focal length was 35mm.

I thought the image turned out well.  I just wanted to share it with you.  Lesson learned: Never make a hard and fast rule as there always seems to be exceptions.

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

All content on this blog is © 2013-2022 Dennis A. Mook. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to point to this blog from your website with full attribution. Permission may be granted for commercial use. Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images.