by Ken Smith
A short hike to Second Beach while visiting La Push for the unusual 'sunny' weekend in Puget Sound, WA. After visiting in the afternoon, my wife and I cooked our dinner...then I returned to the beach with camera gear for this sunset. I was glad to capture this composition. The tide was also low so there were plenty of tidepools showing.
Nikon d800e, Nikon 14-24mm at 14mm and F18, single exposure
EDIT: Mark, thanks for the comments. I do not have a large nd grad filter for the 14-24mm lens... and I don't know if there is one that does a good job. What I did was used a stiff black filter pouch ...that's right the fabric nylon pouch ...and held in front of the lens ...at the mid-level to match the line of the ocean horizon.... then with the exposure at 1/15 or 1/10 sec... I would snap my wrist and lift the fabric just as I clicked the cable shutter...effectively blocking the sun and sky for only a portion of the exposure....depending on my timing and speed. That still allowed for some of the sky and sun to be exposed to the sensor. I would have to do this a 20 times...and try to find one that looked good... 95% fail rate....too dark or too bright. Since I lifted the fabric upward...the top of the sky was darkest... so I had to do a little brightening. But this was the only way that I could knock down the sun. "Ghetto nd grad filter"
I suppose I should have done multiple exposures and tried for an hd blend.....
Comments
10 commentsVery nicely done. That center pool makes this image. I've seen several images from this place. Must make a note to visit it some day. There is a peculiar tinge of cyan in the near pool that looks a bit unatural. Pretty, but unatural. The distant cliffs could be sharper. Don't know if that is due to shooting at F18 or the DOF wasn't measured quite right. A really beautiful image, especially in the larger version where the rich dynamic range is particularly evident.
Ken, this is so beautiful, that I'm afraid to see what your third beach sunset may look like.
The color change across the sky is great and the way the light highlights the tidal pools is looks great. I am curious about how you were able to hold the sun's exposure.
Real nice image, Ken. I really like the comp, with strong fore and mid ground elements leading my attention in. Your improvised ngrad technique worked beautifully. I have the same lens and was wondering how I would ngrad it. I was planning to do the blend, but might give your techniqe a try when needed. It works.
The color gradient in the sky is really interesting! A very minor nit would be to take away a bit of the empty space on the left, my eyes keep going in that direction. But as said, that's a minor nit, this is really nice as is. Looks like a great evening to spend on a place like this with a camera in hand.
Oh, and good use of the blocking technique! I use that technique very often (especially in combination with ND's to elongate the ss) and it works like a charm.
Very nicely done! The composition is well conceived and the light is gorgeous.
Your ND technique is was a great solution.
--P
Lovely shot Ken! I love the light and colors. Excellent comp too.
Very clever approach! And well executed!
Ken, many thanks for the explanation. It's a neat solution and in your image, it really doesn't look like you used some kind of split ND, so it clearly works well, when you get the timing and speed right (not an easy task). Yeah, you might be able to duplicate this with an "HD blend", but that's not easy to make work well either, so it strikes me as a "pick your poison" technical choice.
This is really beautiful, your special ND worked very well. It's a good idea to do it with this lens. I like the colors in the sky and the small pools with their rocks and reflection of the sun. Gorgeous light in a nice composition. Bravo!
-jc
Looks like paradise. Thanks for explaining your blocking scenario, I would have never thought of that.
Hi Ken,
The foreground tide pools are a great lead into the scene along with the texture in the sand. The light is killer good, but you have handled the dynamic range beautifully. I am going to look into your technique, and see what I can do with it myself. Thank you for sharing that information.
sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet image