🌅 Stunning Sunrise Timelapse with the DJI Pocket 3 📸

gear4greatness
Mar 24
5 min read

Updated: Nov 16

🌅 Stunning Sunrise Timelapse with the DJI Pocket 3 📸

Sunrises have always had this quiet power over me — that slow unraveling of darkness, the soft glow that hints at something brighter just over the horizon. 🌅✨ There’s a calmness to it, almost like the world takes a breath before waking, and I’ve always loved capturing that feeling on camera. When I headed out with the DJI Pocket 3 to film a sunrise timelapse, I felt that familiar mix of anticipation and stillness, the kind that makes you slow down and just appreciate being outside with a camera in your hand.

The Pocket 3 is such a natural fit for mornings like this. It feels almost weightless in your bag, but the moment you power it on and see that little 3-axis gimbal wake up, it reminds you that it’s far more capable than its tiny frame suggests. 🎥 I set it up before dawn—sky still deep blue, air crisp enough that you can feel it on your cheeks—mounting it on a small tripod facing the water. The surface was perfectly calm, a sheet of glass waiting for the first spark of light.

As the world slowly brightened, I could feel the atmosphere shift. Birds were just starting to move, the distant hum of the city hadn’t kicked in yet, and all I could hear was the soft ripple of water against the shore. I framed the shot with a bit of driftwood in the foreground to give it depth — something to anchor the stillness while the sky did its magic above. 💭🌊 Composing a sunrise feels almost meditative; you lean into the subtle changes in color, shadows, and silhouettes, and let the camera tell the story.

Once everything felt right, I switched to timelapse mode, set a 2-second interval, locked my ISO at 100, dialed in a 1/50 shutter for gentle motion blur, and fixed the white balance so the colors wouldn’t shift unexpectedly once the sun broke through. With exposure locked, everything was ready to roll. The Pocket 3 just stood there quietly, doing its thing, capturing that transformation from blue hour to glowing gold.

And then it happened — that first slice of orange cresting the horizon. The way the light pushed through, washing the sky in warm layers… it hit me with that familiar mix of awe and gratitude. ✨ The timelapse sped up the process, but watching it unfold in real time still felt special. Every few minutes the colors shifted — lavender, pink, amber — reflecting across the water like painted brushstrokes. It’s moments like that when I’m reminded why I love shooting alone in the early morning; it’s just you, the camera, and a quiet world revealing itself one frame at a time.

When I brought the footage home and loaded it into CapCut, the story felt effortless. A bit of stabilization, a soft S-curve grade to bring out the warmth, and the timelapse came alive in a way that felt both peaceful and powerful. 🌤️ Adding a gentle ambient track underneath helped lift the emotion even more, turning it into a short but meaningful moment — a sunrise distilled into motion.

FINAL THOUGHTS

There’s something deeply grounding about filming a sunrise, especially when you’re working with a camera as unobtrusive and capable as the DJI Pocket 3. 🌅 It lets you be present in the moment instead of fussing with gear, and that’s part of why mornings like this stay with me long after the edit is done. As the sun rose and the shoreline warmed up, I felt like I’d captured not just the colors, but the feeling of being there — that early-morning quiet that hits before the world starts moving again.

Watching the timelapse back later felt like reliving the entire morning in fast-forward — the shifting glow, the gradual awakening of light, the calmness that turned into energy as the sun took its place in the sky. ✨ It reminded me how simple gear can still deliver something powerful when you pair it with intention and patience. The Pocket 3 may be small, but mornings like this prove how much storytelling it’s capable of.

As I finished the edit, I caught myself smiling at the little details — a soft reflection on the water, the way the clouds drifted just right, the way the light warmed the frame at the perfect moment. Those are the things that make sunrise shoots feel almost personal, like a quiet conversation between you and the day ahead. 💭🎥 And every time I film one, I walk away feeling a little more awake, a little more inspired, and a little more grateful that a tiny camera can capture something so big.

🌅 Stunning Sunrise Timelapse with the DJI Pocket 3 📸