Sunrise over the mighty Angkor Wat

It was an early start as we headed out to the Angkor complex to see sunrise over the temples. I was amazed to see how many tourists were making the same journey in mini buses, tuk tuks and motorcycles.

It was still completely dark at 5.30am as we clambered down the main path into Angkor, a deep moat either side of us - thank god for torches!

Our guide led us to some sort of old building that would give us a view of the main temple. Thousands of tourists closer to the main temple flashed their point and shoot cameras in the darkness, which at least gave us something to focus on.

In that sort of darkness, and without knowing what we were actually looking at or attempting to shoot, it helps to do some test shots at the highest ISO you can crank your camera up to. Even then, you might need to do a 10 second shot to get some idea of the landscape in front of you.

It didn't take long before light began to break through the amazing clouds above us, and the full extent of the size of Angkor Wat was revealed.

Beautiful oranges and reds filled the sky, as the three iconic spires of the temple remained in silhouette. I took about 100 or shots until the sun actually broke through, starting off wide with the Canon 24-70mm lens, then experimenting with the Zeiss 85mm lens. The 24-70mm lens was wide enough to capture the entire scene, whereas the 85mm lens gave me close ups of the three spires in silhouette. Such beautiful colours!!

As the sun rose higher, reflections of the temple and clouds appeared in the large pond between us and the temple. It was an awesome light show, and one definitely worth the early start!








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