Waterscapes 2

[Tareq Alhemrani]

2 shots from Sharjah Beach, same spot of my thread "Waterscapes 1".

1.


2.


All are non HDR

[Brigitte]

Great photos .. Wow !
Good work

regards,
Brigitte

[Dave Humphries]

Yes, nice lighting, well caught.

#2 makes a good change, not having the sky, etc.

[Tareq Alhemrani]

Great photos .. Wow !
Good work

regards,
Brigitte

Thank you very much, Brigitte!

[Tareq Alhemrani]

Yes, nice lighting, well caught.

#2 makes a good change, not having the sky, etc.

Thank you very much to you too!

In fact i still not so much satisfied with my country landscapes shots, i really feel envious or jealous for people who live in Europe, they can see all the seasons and the weather is great most of the time even raining or cloudy, but here always sun and hot and humid most of the time and no nature and so.

Anyway, i hope that i can be a good landscapes/nature photographer in the future.

[shreds]

It is always better the other side of the fence!

(I will be first in line for a swap!)

[Tareq Alhemrani]

It is always better the other side of the fence!

(I will be first in line for a swap!)

Oh really?!!! I am 1000% ready for that swap, i know you people love the sun and desert and beaches, but i love green and raining and landscapes and clouds.

[Lincs1]

First one for me, but straighten it, colours in the sky are lovely

Lincs1

[Yan Zhang]

Haven't come to the forum for a while.

I like the second picture - its good composition and color. However, I found
the foreground pebbles are all out of focus, maybe its my eye problem?

If not, can you explain a bit how do you focus in this shot?

Regards,

Yan

[Tareq Alhemrani]

First one for me, but straighten it, colours in the sky are lovely

Lincs1

Yes, i agree.
Thank you very much!

[Tareq Alhemrani]

Haven't come to the forum for a while.

I like the second picture - its good composition and color. However, I found
the foreground pebbles are all out of focus, maybe its my eye problem?

If not, can you explain a bit how do you focus in this shot?

Regards,

Yan

Not sure about that because i was using f22, so let's say it is because those waves coming over the rocks with long exposure/ slow shutter speed.

Thank you!

Regards,

Tareq

[Colin Southern]

I like the second picture - its good composition and color. However, I found
the foreground pebbles are all out of focus, maybe its my eye problem?

If not, can you explain a bit how do you focus in this shot?

Hi Yan,

For this kind of composition - if you're shooting stopped down - then you only need to focus about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way into the scene. With long exposures (some of mine are several minutes) (and some of those with the tripod in 2 feet of moving salt water!) there are a few "gotchas" to watch out for ...

- Wind. Especially with longer lenses. Apart from locking everything down (and even leaning on the tripod) there's probably not a lot you can do if that's already the best time for light.

- Tripod Movement. Especially if setup on rocks - I always try to get it bedded down as much as possible - sometimes hanging heavy gear bags from the centre helps (and it can also help to kep them above the waterline!).

- Land movement. Especially when shooting from the likes of bridges where things like runners pounding past / cars / or even my own restless pacing around the area waiting for a multi-minute exposure to finish. Often I'll take medium length exposures (say 30 seconds) when there are breaks in traffic, and no runners - and be careful not to move or to move quickly out of the way until the shutter closes.

Of course a rock-solid tripod / head / bracket are a pre-requisite!

Hope this helps,

Cheers,

Colin - pbase.com/cjsouthern

[Yan Zhang]

Hi Yan,

For this kind of composition - if you're shooting stopped down - then you only need to focus about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way into the scene. With long exposures (some of mine are several minutes) (and some of those with the tripod in 2 feet of moving salt water!) there are a few "gotchas" to watch out for ...

- Wind. Especially with longer lenses. Apart from locking everything down (and even leaning on the tripod) there's probably not a lot you can do if that's already the best time for light.

- Tripod Movement. Especially if setup on rocks - I always try to get it bedded down as much as possible - sometimes hanging heavy gear bags from the centre helps (and it can also help to kep them above the waterline!).

- Land movement. Especially when shooting from the likes of bridges where things like runners pounding past / cars / or even my own restless pacing around the area waiting for a multi-minute exposure to finish. Often I'll take medium length exposures (say 30 seconds) when there are breaks in traffic, and no runners - and be careful not to move or to move quickly out of the way until the shutter closes.

Of course a rock-solid tripod / head / bracket are a pre-requisite!
most
Hope this helps,

Cheers,

Colin - pbase.com/cjsouthern

Hi Colin,

Thanks very much for the insight on this. I have recently learned about the hyerfocal distance technique to get maximum DOF for shooting scenes like this. I found one difficult thing is to get the tripod stable as you indicated already.

The following picture I took in The Entrance was an exercise on this: I used a hyperfocal distance to focus, inserted my tripod into the sand, and with a long exposure (close to 1 minute).

[Colin Southern]

Hi Yan,

You're welcome. If you're shooting stopped down with a WA lens then it's not so much a case of "hyperfocal distance" as it is pretty much "everything a few feet in front of the camera in focus" - the DOF is enormous (in fact diffraction becomes a bigger issue if you're trying to retain small detail) (which is an exercise all in itself with WA lenses).

One potential problem with long exposures like that is the clouds can look like they're caught in a hurricane ... sometimes people like that look (personally I don't mind a bit of it, but past a certain point it looks a bit overdone) - the way around it (if you don't like that effect) is to open up - refocus - and shoot it seperately - and then use it to replace the existing horizon from the long exposure (just don't forget to refocus before continuing stopped down).

You can get some nice shots with this technique, but it can keep you quite busy if the light is changing (which is why I wish Canon would give us the ability to remember two different focusings in the 1Ds3 firmware

[Alis]

Are these images taken with a filter? Colin, is that what you mean by step down? Is the narrow aperture just for focus or it is also used to limit the amount of light so that a long exposure can be achieved?

[Colin Southern]

Are these images taken with a filter?

(presume you're asking the photographers who took them?)

Colin, is that what you mean by step down? Is the narrow aperture just for focus or it is also used to limit the amount of light so that a long exposure can be achieved?

Hi,

It's "Stop Down" (not "step down"), but yes - using a smaller aperture, for both of the reasons you mention.

At the end of the day it all depends on what it is you're after and what you've got to work with - normally you won't see much Dof difference with WA landscapes between F11 & F22 - so anything within that range that gives you the shutter speed you want is generally OK - but if you don't have something like a TC-80N3 and are limited to 30 second exposures then you've either got to open up more or use a higher ISO (of which both can have consequences). Often it's just a case of "thinking on your feet" and adapting to what's in front of you - in some cases like my "beauty before dawn" shot a narrow DoF works for you, whereas in others you need all you can get.

Often the problem is too much light - so the main weapon there is my Singh-Ray Vari-ND that gives me 2 to 8 stops of ND - AND - allows me to set shutterspeed - aperture - and ISO (like taking candy from a baby somedays

[Yan Zhang]

One potential problem with long exposures like that is the clouds can look like they're caught in a hurricane ... sometimes people like that look (personally I don't mind a bit of it, but past a certain point it looks a bit overdone) - the way around it (if you don't like that effect) is to open up - refocus - and shoot it seperately - and then use it to replace the existing horizon from the long exposure (just don't forget to refocus before continuing stopped down).

Colin,

When you said "to open up - refocus - and shoot it seperately - and then use it to ....", do you mean to compose two different shots with two different parts (sky in one shot and foreground from another shot) together in Photoshop?

[Colin Southern]

Colin,

When you said "to open up - refocus - and shoot it seperately - and then use it to ....", do you mean to compose two different shots with two different parts (sky in one shot and foreground from another shot) together in Photoshop?

Hi Yan,

My apologies - I'm using "lingo" again!

Basicially, you're on to it ... you've often got two parts to the scene (or more) that require seperate treatment; with clouds - if you don't want the "hurricane effect" then you usually have to keep your exposures down to a few seconds (depending on how fast they're moving) - but the good news is that since they're so far away, you can use a wide aperture (say F2.8) (but you have to focus to infinity).

With the foreground (especially if water is involved then if you want the "smooth / dreamy" look then you'll need something from a few seconds to a few minutes - so stopping down to F16 / F22 etc helps (but often more attenuation is needed).

Add to all of that the need for GND filters and you can see that it makes for a somewhat busy exercise ... but the good news is that it lays the foundation for a professional result ... which is why I sometimes chuckle to myself when someone else comes along and tries to capture the scene with a compact

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Colin,

I don't doubt you're right (you do it so often and I've never done it), but won't the combining of the two differently focussed images be hampered due to slightly different fields of view that result from re-focussing?

Or I may have mis-understood what I read about that.

Hmmm, further thought makes me think that unless you can change/remove an ND filter, the only way to get a shorter exposure, discounting increasing the ISO, is to widen the aperture, which may result in infinity being outside the previously focused hyper-focal range, hence requiring the re-focus. I think I may have just talked my own query into "being unavoidable" in many circumstances.

Thanks,

[Colin Southern]

Hi Dave,

You think too much

FoV may change slightly (I don't pay a lot of attention to it to be honest), but it's not usually a problem because (a) what's above the horizon is often completely unrelated to what's below that line, and (b) worst case scenario is that you need to free transform one half or the other

(Horizons are great - you can hide all sorts of mask / select edges in them

With regards to focusing - yes - one does need to refocus; that's the "fun" part because it's not possible to change the composition (actually, not quite true, but you make more work for yourself in PP). If you happen to have selectable AF points over high contrast areas then it can be possible to select them, but it's risky because AF often gets it completely wrong were clouds are concerned, especially with extreme lighting conditions and WA lenses. Best way I've found is to use LiveView because it's possible to select up to 10x magnification - AND - select any portion of the image, which can itself be "fun" if you've got strong/bright light heading straight towards you ... no-one said it was easy!