Digital Camera World » seascape

Low-light photography: tips for winter seascape pictures

jmeyer — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 03:00:45 +0000

With the nights drawing in, photographers can make the most of the low light conditions by getting out with your camera to capture glowing sunsets, inky blue moonlit skies and atmospheric stormy scenes. Below we’ve offered our best low-light photography tips for capturing beautiful winter seascapes.

1. Winter can be great for night photography: often the atmosphere is crisp and clear, resulting in clean night skies. Using moonlight helps fill what can otherwise be a deep, dark sky – but expose too long and your shot may look like daylight. At night you need as much light on your EOS sensor as possible; combine slow shutter speeds with wide apertures and high ISO settings.

2. The essential skill for sunset photography is to ‘read’ the sky – thin clouds above a clear horizon will usually produce great colour. The best time is around 30 minutes after sunset, so make sure you’re in position.

The Auto White Balance setting on your DSLR should give good results, but you can warm up the colours by setting the White Balance to Cloudy or setting it manually to around 6500k to 7000k.

If shooting in raw format you can adjust the colour temperature in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) or using other Raw processing software. You can also intensify the colours using the Vibrancy and Saturation sliders found in ACR.

3. Knowing where the sun will appear in your scene can be very useful when planning a shoot. Tools such as Flight Logistics’ Photographer’s Sun Compass (£21, www.flight-logistics.com) show where the sun will set in a given location at any time of the year.

4. ND grad filters balance bright skies and darker landscapes in one shot. They come in degrees of density and transition – a soft edge for use with irregular horizons and a hard edge for straight lines. You can stack filters to get a stronger effect.

5. Capturing a sense of movement from water can really help to bring your landscape photos to life. Look for rivers, streams and waterfalls, and shoot after the sun has set, to benefit from the low light levels.

This will enable you to use a long exposure time to record movement in seas, rivers and waterfalls too – without fear of exposing your shots. Experiment to find the best exposure time to suit the speed of the water. Try 1/8 sec for fast flowing water and up to 30 seconds for slow moving water. If you require even longer exposures to get a particular effect you can use a straight ND filter.

6. It’s sometimes the case that there is only one ideal composition for a particular scene. However, it’s always worth experimenting to see what else could work. Try to incorporate interesting foreground elements, switch between horizontal and vertical formats – or even try creating a panorama by stitching several frames together.

You’ll often find that the panoramic format will work in situations where other formats fail due to lack of foreground interest or a boring sky. Careful setup is essential, and remember to overlap each image by at least 25% to enable the stitching software (such as Photomerge in Photoshop) to blend the sequence of images seamlessly.

Photo of the day: 20 August

samanthacliffe — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 06:00:05 +0000

Pembrokeshire Landscapes by ‘gashwen‘

This is a nice example of a long-exposure seascape. In our tutorial Ocean Blur: take long exposure pictures of the sea you can be proud of we detail just what you need to do to take fantastic seascapes.

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Photo of the day: 18 August

samanthacliffe — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 07:00:25 +0000

The Wave by ‘barri‘

This is an impressive wave! High and powerful waves never fail to make for dramatic subjects to photograph. This huge wave completely dwarfs the lighthouse beside it, and the white of the spray offers a stark contrast to the dark sea in the background, and the blue sky overhead.

View more images from the photographer.

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Photo of the day: 8 August

samanthacliffe — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 06:00:43 +0000

The Beach by ‘responce‘

This is a great minimalist seascape that really benefits from the layers of colours from the beach to the sky.

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Photo of the day: 4 August

samanthacliffe — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 07:00:24 +0000

Hamworthy by Rob Cherry

This long-exposure seascape is satisfyingly moody. Your eye is drawn neatly to the centre of the image, which is further aided by the vignetting. The grey clouds overhead give this scene an almost ominous feel.

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Mmm… Ocean Blur: take long exposure pictures of the sea you can be proud of

jmeyer — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 10:58:46 +0000

Timing is key to shooting great seascapes. You need to be there at the right time of day, but just as important is the timing of the exposure. For a raging, stormy sea, a fast shutter speed can be appropriate, but with calmer waters, the best approach is to take it slow. Very slow. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to take control of your camera to take long exposure pictures of the sea you can be proud of.

Shutter speeds that are seconds long turn even the gentlest waters into a smooth, silky blur, and the expanse of water takes on a milky white appearance that contrasts with the static rocks (find out some of the common mistakes at every shutter speed – and the best settings to use).

All landscapes will tend to look their best if you get up at first light, or stay out until dusk. But these dimmer parts of the day are particularly appropriate for milky seascapes, and the low light will give you longer exposures than shooting in the middle of the day.

However, a little bit of blur in the water isn’t enough to give you the effect you want, which means you either need to shoot after sunset or just before dawn, when the only light is reflected from the sky.

Alternatively, give your camera a helping hand by fitting an ND (neutral density) filter. These dark grey filters (not to be muddled up with graduated neutral density filters, or ND grads) block a percentage of the light entering the camera and enable you to use shutter speeds that are seconds long, even in the middle of the day.

ND filters are available in a variety of strengths. A three-stop ND will increase a shutter speed of 1/4 sec to 2 secs. A 10-stop ND will increase a 1/4 sec exposure to a full four minutes!

As these filters make your camera’s viewfinder very dark, they aren’t the easiest accessories to use, but our step-by-step guide will show you how to make sure you always come home with a great seascape.

NEXT PAGE: Step-by-step how to take long exposure pictures of the sea

Photo of the day: 11 July

samanthacliffe — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 06:00:34 +0000

Levels by Rob Cherry

We love this moody, minimalist seascape from Rob Cherry. Using a long exposure, Rob has created a misty, blur effect on the tide, and has also softened the clouds overhead. This complements the crisp, perfectly straight horizon, which is satisfyingly off-centre. Great stuff, Rob.

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Gallery: Seascape and night photography from Jack Fusco

samanthacliffe — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 11:00:14 +0000

Jack Fusco’s photography primarily focuses on astrophotography and seascapes in New Jersey, United States.

“I got my start in photography while I was touring with a band I played in at the time. It was a way for me to document and explore all of the places I had been traveling to. After I stopped touring, I began to take photography more seriously and expand what I was shooting. Living near the ocean, I focused on seascapes for about a year before I really started to experiment with shooting the night sky. More recently I’ve returned to the ocean, but this time at night. Being able to sit out on the beach under a star filled sky and capture that is very exciting for me. There’s something peaceful and beautiful about it that pulled me in and has only grown since.

I travel pretty light as far as equipment goes. I currently shoot with a Canon 7D and carry two different wide angle lenses and a few filters with me at all times. If I’m trying to capture as much light as possible at night, I’ll use my Tokina 11-16 f/2.8. For any other situation, I’m more than likely to shoot with a Canon 17-40 f/4L. I carry a few different Singh-Ray graduated ND filters and a B&W ND110 for any shooting during the day that I might end up doing. I have a Slik Pro 500dx tripod that I use for both day and night shoots. I’ve found it to be a good middle group between sturdy and light weight, making it a good choice to travel with.

I try to get out and shoot as often as I possibly can. Shooting the stars is something that requires a good deal of planning, but also flexibility. A clear sky that wasn’t in the forecast often means a lot of last minute changes to your sleeping schedule. In addition to keeping an eye on the weather, the moon phase and air quality for the evening play a huge part as well. Living on the east coast of the United States means dealing with a lot of humid evenings in the summer months that make shooting at night a difficult task. In the end, every sleepless night spent out chasing dark skies is completely worth it and certainly a bit addictive as well.”

Taken in Hawaii

Visit Jack’s website, follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

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Photo of the day: 27 June

samanthacliffe — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 13:00:33 +0000

Storm by ‘Barri’

You can’t help but not be staggered by the drama of this picture. It looks like the photographer had to be quite brave to be this close to the stormy see to capture this shot!

View more images by ‘Barri‘

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From sunrise to sunset: 32 fantastic photographs

samanthacliffe — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 10:30:41 +0000

Sunset or sunrise can create some of the most spectacular skies, giving fantastic opportunities for landscape photography. Make the most of any early morning mist that rolls in when photographing sunrise, while sunset tends to offer the best opportunities to capture silhouettes.

These images are some of our favourite photographs of sunrises and sunsets. If you’re inspired by these and itching to get started, read our tutorial on sunset photography.

In the meantime, enjoy!

Salisbury Cathedral © Andreas Jones

Hot Frosty Buzz © Miles Morgan

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