Photo Story: Foggy Sunrise on the Madison River, Yellowstone National Park

When you stay in West Yellowstone, Montana it can be a long drive in the morning to photograph wildlife in the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone National Park. But there is at least one advantage to driving from West Yellowstone early in the morning – a beautiful sunrise along the Madison River.

Foggy Sunrise on the Madison River

There are several pullouts and the Riverside Drive where you can view and photograph beautiful sunrises along the Madison River. Fog is common in this area of the park, so a foggy sunrise can be readily photographed.

A tripod and fast lens is recommended for this low light photography. I was in a hurry to get to the Lamar Valley on this particular morning so I shot this photo hand held. Thank goodness for the 5-axis image stabilization of the Olympus OM-D E-M1 that let me get this shot with the shutter speed down to 1/25^th of a second.

Sunrise on the Madison River Photo Details

Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M1
Lens: Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 Lens
Focal Length: 30mm
ISO: 320
Aperture: f/11
Shutter Speed: 1/25 of a second
Exposure Compensation: -1
Lighting: Crisp, Foggy Morning

Sunrise Photo Processing

Cropped the photo in Lightroom 5.
Used the Sunset 1 Filter in Topaz Clarity to adjust contrast and saturation.
In the Develop Module in Lightroom 5, I adjusted the following sliders.
- Increased Contrast
- Lightened Shadows
- Increased Vibrance
- Adjusted the Blue Luminance and Saturation Sliders
Used Topaz DeNoise and a Layer Mask in Photoshop CC to selectively remove the noise from the photo.
Selectively sharpened the image using the Unsharp filter and a layer mask in Photoshop CC.

Written by Martin Belan

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