At the Costal Trails Golf Links - Half Moon Bay California -[Explore] Mar 4, 2011 #350

Off late I have been reading a lot on how to photograph sea shores and most of it are Dos and Dont's and few tips coming from Pro Photographers Blogs, Vid Tutorials(YouTube) and over few conversations and experiences of fellow photographers and Shutter Gurus...

 

let me share few things & Lessons learned hard way :)

 

 

Don'ts:

1. Never Change a Lens - High Chances of getting dust and Sand into your camera while changing

2. Have a Cleaning Cloth handy - Must To have as you might not know ....and to be prepared for worst

3. cover your filters and lens when not in use to avoid sea mist deposits

 

Do's ...

 

1. Shoot at dawn or dusk - Poping Warm Colors

 

2. Height - this is about the composition & placement of subject &

background.

 

3. Horizontal Horizon - I guess I was able to manage to get a straight horizontal horizon

 

4. If Possible Use ND Grads to stop the light to get the drama in sky and use Polarisers - I have used Lee ND Grad .9 (3 stop) here and was not able to use polarizer as it became annoying to use Polarizer and Cockin Filter holder together as it moves while focusing - lesson learned!

 

5. Avoid flare - use of Hood I was not having hood and you could see a flare on left corner on the rock - second lesson I had learned !

 

6. Try more empty sea - may be use something in the foreground to cover up vast portion of the picture of water. ( I have tried to implement this concept here..)

 

7. Try different approaches to color - try with different white balances as it becomes tricky

 

8. Sturdy Tripod - what i have noticed is that when you try to click long exposure pictures especially on the sea cost near around the place where waves hit the land, i have noticed a slight shaky images even on tripod this is because when the water would draw away the sand under the tripod legs resulting in shake.. so the best ting is to leave your tripod for few minutes so that it settles down and then start clicking pictures !

 

Plz add if i have missed any .. :)

 

I live in bay area and I would like to pair up with fellow shutterbugs to go on photo walks, if any one interested please send me a message, I'll be more then happy to join you

 

Done