Just north of Two Rivers in Point Beach State Park off of Hwy O is the Rawley's Point light. The "O" leaves Hwy 42 just beyond the grocery store on your left... follow the signs to the state park. The lighthouse is just inside of the state park entrance - you can see it from the entry station. From my point of view, it's worth buying the $25 out of state annual parks permit if you're going up to Eagle Bluff State Park... ends up being cheaper after about 3 visits total.

The view you get of Rawley's Point light from the trail going to the beach from right near the wood shed for campers...



From down on the beach, looking up at the light with tall grasses in the foreground, with the aperature wide open and focused on the grass to sort of drop the lighthouse into soft focus...



When I was returning home from Door County last June, I was scheduled to take the Badger back across the lake to Ludington, leaving Manitowoc a little after midnight. I just HAD to stop as I'd saved 1 frame on my last roll of Fuji Provia 400F in my N90 body for a night shot of the light at Rawley's Point. This was shot on a tripod with and 80-200 mm f2.8 lens on the camera and the lens wide open. I watched the meter reading for several rotations of the light to guage what I'd need to use for a shutter speed and shot. Although I don't remember exactly what the shutter speed was, it was fairly fast to minimize the blur of the beam due to the rotation of the lens. The light "blinks" when you're out on Lake Michigan once every 15 sec and as there are two optics on the rotating beacon, that gives it a rate of rotation of 2 rpms.



There are some good views of the light from a little further north at the picnic area parking lot too. I've never shot Rawley's Point at sunrise but need to do that, and may this coming June when I'm over there if anyone wants to get up to join me for that shoot I'd enjoy the company!

Hope you enjoy these.
Gary


Not sure why, but I keep getting a space in the URL "jp g" that prevents the photo from displaying.... oh well.....

Helps too if you don't put the same URL in the post twice!




[This message has been edited by lighthouse_photo (edited 02-16-2002).]

Gary, I really like the one of the beacon lit. It looks like an impossible shot to me!

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Bud Schrader

Not really impossible at all, Bud. Just a matter of knowing how your camera's metering system works and setting it up properly to do the job it's supposed to. I should probably talk about this specific example in the thread I started to assemble on low light photography. I'll have to credit you with the idea of doing so!

Gary

Gary, do you collect Harbour Lights?

I've been trying to get a good photo of Rawley's Point for quite some time now. A morning sunrise shot would be perfect. Our club talked about going there. Camping at the park might be a good way to be there for a sunrise.

Suzanne

Hi Tim,
I do collect Harbour Lights and have a very modest collection of about 12 or 13 of them. Mostly, I seem to end up with the ones that I really enjoy photographing along with the North Carolina lights as we lived in the RTP area for 7 years. I'm sure my wife would MUCH rather I just collected HL minatures rather than the Nikon lenses that I'm so immensely fond of! Even a huge HL collection would be considerably cheaper than my collection of Nikon goodies!

Gary

Hi Suzanne,

Camping there would undoubtedly be the best way to get a sunrise shot. I've done a lot of driving through Door County to get to various places to take sunrise shots, most frequently at Sturgeon Bay's North Pierhead light. Not a whole lot of fun when you have to get up at 3:30 AM to drive 90 min and then hike for 20 or so to get in position 30 min before sunrise to set up and decide what you're going to shoot... I'll probably camp at Point Beach State Park at least one or two nights in June the week before Rosemont... Anyone is more than welcome to join me to shoot Rawley's Point at sunrise if they'd like!

Gary