Wide Field sunset beach photography.

[hotspur]

Here are some attempts at photographing sunsets at the beach,I took these on Friday evening-the beach was a little boring,and using 10 mm did not seem to make it look interesting,So I used the 22 mm end of lens.Settings iso 100,settings around 50-60-up to 80,AV F11.Had a UV filter on (was right on the beach,so always worry about salt spray)

This is my first attempt at trying this new wide field lens for one of the main purposes for which I bought it,any advice-comments and critique welcomed.
I feel some of these images may look better cropped pano-style.

Thanks for looking-Chris

[DavidTrap]

I like the colours Chris, but the foreground doesn't work for me. I find the big blob of black and the cut in half silhouettes a bit distracting.

How about cropping them out and some of the grey clouds - like this.

DT

[shelltree]

The sky is great and you've got some beautiful reflections in the water with the rippling sand a really great focal point. The foreground however is very dark and really distracts from the amazing sky. I find myself wanting to be able to see more of the scene but I cannot.

I think it would be beneficial to try using aeb (auto exposure bracketing) in camera and seeing whether you can blend the images for a more even exposure. NOT hdr but you can still do exposure fusion in Photomatix and get some good results. This is the technique I used before going down the grad filter road.

Of course if you don't like the idea of aeb you could always try just doing skyscapes, capturing the amazing clouds and colour and therefore you wouldn't have the distracting dark foreground. Just a few thoughts.

Cheers,

Shelley

[hotspur]

Thanks Shelly_ I think I might take a look down the grad filter road.what one did you get for this type of work,and where did you get it?-If you have a link to the grad filter you got that would be great.I think DT told me he takes one image for the sky and the changes the settings and takes one for the landscape and then blends them.

I think Humayan does as much as he can 'in camera' for this type of photography,I'd like to try and do that too,not sure what filters he uses.

Really just testing out this new lens (Canon 10-22 mm ) for this type of work-I never used it much before.Although I am thinking the 17-55,could really be used more for this type of work-I was up the 22 mm end quite a bit for these.

The other shots in day time at beach were all at 10 mm,but I have not had any feed back on them,not sure if I did something wrong with them

Thanks for feed back-Chris

[shelltree]

I originally got the Lee Soft Grad filter set and they are great but once it gets lighter then you find they aren't dark enough. So my boyfriend ended up buying me the Lee Hard Grad filter set and I've been using them ever since. A bit harder to get right the first time as the graduation is a lot darker but they are certainly worth it.

I got the Lee Filters here: https://www.teamworkphoto.com/shop/index.php

There is also Cokin filters which are a bit cheaper than the Lee Filters but I've heard complaints about them having a purple discolouring effect in photos although some I've seen have been okay as well.

Definitely do NOT get the Sing Ray filters. They are uber expensive anyway and are suppose to be fantastic but they SUCK. My boyfriend has one and it cast a horrible magenta colour in all his shots and they were so rude about it and completely ignored him when he complained because he had even asked them specifically whether it coloured casted and they said no. Fooligans. So, Sing Ray = bad.

When I was using aeb, I would always go with three exposures. under exposed, "perfect" exposed (to the camera anyway) and then over exposed. I think you get the most detail out of it but hey, I'm no expert so don't take my word for it. Definitely experiment and read up as much as possible about all the different techniques you can use.

And I agree about doing most of the work in camera, I like my photography to be as natural as possible which means hopefully not having to do too many adjustments in raw editor or photoshop.

I'd also have to say a wide angle lens is perfect for this type of photography, I never go anything over 17mm on my 17-50mm lens and I'd love to have a wide angle to use!

I'm not sure what H uses, hopefully he reads this and can enlighten us here ;)

Cheers,

Shell

[DavidTrap]

I agree that Cokin are terrible - I sold my set on eBay. I'm happy to fiddle in Photoshop, so my preferred technique is to do a virtual ND filter technique. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's a free country.

Other than a skylight filter to protect the front lens elements, then only filters I carry are a Polariser, 9x ND filter for long exposures at the beach, and an infra-red filter just because I like the effect.

DT