Beach shots from this arvo/tonight

[iceman (Mike)]

Watching the Ken Duncan video inspired me to do some longer exposures with the lens stopped right down to f/22.

I love landscape shots, but I've always had the lens too wide open, meaning I wasn't getting focus across the whole field. This new technique has definitely improved my shots, and of course it helped to have some night lighting at sunset, nice clouds and of course nice scenery on the beach.

The last 2 (in the next post) I captured the just-past-full moon rising over Terrigal haven, using my new star-cross filter. I'm very happy with that filter and look forward to using it in the city!

I used a 6x ND filter on most shots, and on the 2nd shot I also used the graduated tobacco.

I was looking for something interesting to put in the foreground but on the beach there's not too much around.. the bucket in the 5th and 6th shots gave me what I was looking for.

Comments welcome.

[iceman (Mike)]

The last 2 with the star-cross filter..

[beren]

terrific work again Mike , really like that shot with the bucket closer in the foreground . Enjoy reading your experiences and thoughts on how you compose your shots . Not sure if you know but there's a handy feature in Photoshop CS that handles shadows {Image-adjustments-shadow/highlights} , hope you don't mind i used it on one of your images .

[iceman (Mike)]

Thanks Staurt!

Yeh I used the shadows/highlights feature all the time Very handy! I already did use it in that shot, but just a little. I didn't really enjoy the foreground so much and I wanted the focus to be on the clouds/trees, so I left it darker..

Thanks!

[acropolite (Phil)]

Nice shots Mike, I have to agree about the shadow effect, I prefer the image with the shadow darker.

[RB (Andrew)]

Excellent work Mike, wow, you'll be opening your own gallery at Erina soon.
I especially love the contrast in colour in the bucket and sand shot. The red bucket really looks great against the sand and blue colours.

Presentation as always is fantastic.

One suggestion I'd like to make is to clone out those dust spots.

Well done once again, gee you must have quite a collection already.
When are you releasing your own DVD?

[iceman (Mike)]

Thanks for the comments. RB I agree with you about the dust, i've started cloning them out before printing the hi-res versions but forgot on a few of these when saving for web.

Really, I need to get rid of those dust spots. It's just laziness that I haven't tried your rectal syringe yet

I really should starting copying my favourites onto DVD.. if my hard-drive went belly up i'd be most upset!

Thanks again