MarkBarbieri
Semi-retired
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2006
- Messages
- 6,171
We recently returned from our Spring Break trip to Monterey, California. As is my habit on vacation, I took a lot of pictures. I think the final total was just north of 4,500. I did some experimenting with styles and perspectives on that trip and I thought I'd share some of the thinking behind some of my shots. Hopefully it will serve as an inspiration for some of you (even if it just inspires you NOT to do what I did). The complete set of about 600 "keepers" is here.
One thing that I love to do when I'm in that area is take long exposure shots of the sea. Early in the morning or late in the evening, you can capture long exposures of the waves crashing into the coast. The appearance of the water changes dramatically for longer exposures. Just about every photography book tells you to do this for waterfalls, but no one seems to mention the sea.
In this first shot, I took at 25 second shot at f/13. The surf was roaring that morning with good size waves pounding the shore. During the 25 seconds of my picture, the white froth of the waves was captured as a white mist drifting above a tranquil looking sea.
This closeup shot of some rocks was taken at 15 seconds and f/16. It was a clear, crisp morning, but the long exposure transformed the waves into an ethereal fog draped over the rocks.
Getting even closer, I increased the shutter speed to 1/5 of a second. At this speed the water no longer looks like a mist. Now the photo shows the roiling, swirling motion of the water. I moved from rocky area to rocky area looking for places where the waves created interesting swirling patterns like this one.
In this 4/10 second shot, I captured water flowing over a rock in what looks almost like a waterfall in the ocean.
This is a 1 second shot taken at the rocky shoreline. I took the shot just as the water started to recede from the shore.
Here is an evening shot. The water was relatively calm, so you don't see the "mist" formed by the wave tops. The bright section was caused by the moonlight reflecting across the water. This shot was 25 seconds.
I also tried some long exposure suffer shots. I set the camera on a tripod, switched the IS to panning mode, and took some long exposure panning shots. This was taken at 1/8 second. I should probably have stuck to faster shots, but the surfers don't move all that fast, and I wanted a lot of blur. I should mention that with the bright light, I needed a very dark neutral density filter to get the shutter speed long enough for this shot.
I got frustrated with the panning shots after a while because I had so much trouble with them. For grins, I tried one long exposure shot with the camera steady letting the wave and surfer move in the frame. I thought the result was interesting and show promise for the technique. I wanted to go out and shoot more later in the week, but I never had the right combination of light, surf, and surfers. The shot I have is nothing special, but I think some variations like shorter exposures and including more in focus and non-moving foreground and background would be cool.
Another thing that I tried to do on the trip was to use different perspectives that I normally do. I rarely shoot wide and when I do, I'm rarely happy with the results. I studied some wide shots that I like (including several on this site) and noticed that they almost all had interesting foreground objects. I also remembered a few shots I had of my kids from a prior beach trip where I used a really wide angle held close to them.
Here is a shot that I took with my widest lens at it's widest setting (17mm - 22mm equiv on full frame). I held the camera low, ran along side my son, and just guessed at the framing. The light was bright, so I wasn't really worried about the shutter speed while I ran. I had to crop the shot some because I aimed a little high. If you try this technique, take a lot of shots and expect some with chopped off heads, arms, etc.
There are a few things that make the shot work for me. First, my son dominates the picture. He's not some little figure off in the distance. Second, the low angle makes him look "viewer sized" instead of like someone we're looking down on. Finally, the wide angle included a good section of background to provide a nice setting.
Here's a static shot of my younger son using the same technique. Once again, I like his scale in the picture, the fact that we are seeing him at his level, and the inclusion of the background. It was late in the day when I took this shot and he was in the shadows. I used the flash to lighten him up. Ideally, I should have used an off camera flash held higher because his leg is lit more than his face, drawing attention to the wrong place. I didn't have my off camera flash cord with me, so my options were limited. I think next year I'm going to bring a wireless flash transmitter.
In addition to the wide, low, and close shots, I still took a lot of shots with my telephoto lens. Here is one that I took trying to make him look small and alone in front of a empty sea.
Here is a shot I took zoomed in tight but from a very low perspective again.
I should point out that I was literally laying on the same shooting from inches above the sand. I wouldn't recommend doing this with most cameras. It's impossible to keep the sand off of the camera and sand is really, really evil stuff for cameras.
Here is a ground level shot of him jumping.
I also tried a wide angle shot from almost ground level to create a "giant" kid shot. It's an amusing perspective, but it definitely has a gimmicky look that wears thin quickly.
I did a lot of shooting at the aquarium. It's a frustrating place to shoot because there is never enough light, the light is weird, and the glass is thick and distorting. I found the best results came from sticking the camera directly on the glass and shooting whatever was straight in front of me. Tilting the camera never seemed to work well. People probably thought I was a freak the way I'd move my camera up and down and side to side trying to set up a shot, but then, I'm kind of used to that.
This shot was at ISO 800, 50mm, f/2.5, and 1/30 of a second. There are a lot of things that could be improved (more DOF, faster shutter speed, more light on the top of the jellyfish, etc), but I still like it. It's actually upside down, but I think they look better this way.
The picture provoked a neighbor to ask me if I shot it through the glass. The only answer I could think of worthy of the question was "No, they let me swim in the jellyfish tank so that I could get a clear shot."
If you want to see more Aquarium shots, you can see them start here.
I never did have a really pretty sunset while we were there. I've found that on cloudless nights, the sky is usually a boring subject. The water, however, can be interesting when it captures the red/orange glow of the setting sun.
Here is a shot that I got of a seal hanging out on a rock at sunset. The shot was taken at f/5.6, 125mm, 1/25 seconds at ISO 100. I wanted a relatively slow shutter speed to get a little blur and softening in the water, but not enough to catch movement in the seal.
Here's a shot that I took with my widest lens aimed downward. I wanted to capture a lot of foreground and show Bird Roost (the big, white rock) off in the distance. I like the shot, but I think that it only works because I know the scale of what I'm looking at. To someone that has never been there, it probably just looks like a bunch of rocks and water.
One thing that I love to do when I'm in that area is take long exposure shots of the sea. Early in the morning or late in the evening, you can capture long exposures of the waves crashing into the coast. The appearance of the water changes dramatically for longer exposures. Just about every photography book tells you to do this for waterfalls, but no one seems to mention the sea.
In this first shot, I took at 25 second shot at f/13. The surf was roaring that morning with good size waves pounding the shore. During the 25 seconds of my picture, the white froth of the waves was captured as a white mist drifting above a tranquil looking sea.
This closeup shot of some rocks was taken at 15 seconds and f/16. It was a clear, crisp morning, but the long exposure transformed the waves into an ethereal fog draped over the rocks.
Getting even closer, I increased the shutter speed to 1/5 of a second. At this speed the water no longer looks like a mist. Now the photo shows the roiling, swirling motion of the water. I moved from rocky area to rocky area looking for places where the waves created interesting swirling patterns like this one.
In this 4/10 second shot, I captured water flowing over a rock in what looks almost like a waterfall in the ocean.
This is a 1 second shot taken at the rocky shoreline. I took the shot just as the water started to recede from the shore.
Here is an evening shot. The water was relatively calm, so you don't see the "mist" formed by the wave tops. The bright section was caused by the moonlight reflecting across the water. This shot was 25 seconds.
I also tried some long exposure suffer shots. I set the camera on a tripod, switched the IS to panning mode, and took some long exposure panning shots. This was taken at 1/8 second. I should probably have stuck to faster shots, but the surfers don't move all that fast, and I wanted a lot of blur. I should mention that with the bright light, I needed a very dark neutral density filter to get the shutter speed long enough for this shot.
I got frustrated with the panning shots after a while because I had so much trouble with them. For grins, I tried one long exposure shot with the camera steady letting the wave and surfer move in the frame. I thought the result was interesting and show promise for the technique. I wanted to go out and shoot more later in the week, but I never had the right combination of light, surf, and surfers. The shot I have is nothing special, but I think some variations like shorter exposures and including more in focus and non-moving foreground and background would be cool.
Another thing that I tried to do on the trip was to use different perspectives that I normally do. I rarely shoot wide and when I do, I'm rarely happy with the results. I studied some wide shots that I like (including several on this site) and noticed that they almost all had interesting foreground objects. I also remembered a few shots I had of my kids from a prior beach trip where I used a really wide angle held close to them.
Here is a shot that I took with my widest lens at it's widest setting (17mm - 22mm equiv on full frame). I held the camera low, ran along side my son, and just guessed at the framing. The light was bright, so I wasn't really worried about the shutter speed while I ran. I had to crop the shot some because I aimed a little high. If you try this technique, take a lot of shots and expect some with chopped off heads, arms, etc.
There are a few things that make the shot work for me. First, my son dominates the picture. He's not some little figure off in the distance. Second, the low angle makes him look "viewer sized" instead of like someone we're looking down on. Finally, the wide angle included a good section of background to provide a nice setting.
Here's a static shot of my younger son using the same technique. Once again, I like his scale in the picture, the fact that we are seeing him at his level, and the inclusion of the background. It was late in the day when I took this shot and he was in the shadows. I used the flash to lighten him up. Ideally, I should have used an off camera flash held higher because his leg is lit more than his face, drawing attention to the wrong place. I didn't have my off camera flash cord with me, so my options were limited. I think next year I'm going to bring a wireless flash transmitter.
In addition to the wide, low, and close shots, I still took a lot of shots with my telephoto lens. Here is one that I took trying to make him look small and alone in front of a empty sea.
Here is a shot I took zoomed in tight but from a very low perspective again.
I should point out that I was literally laying on the same shooting from inches above the sand. I wouldn't recommend doing this with most cameras. It's impossible to keep the sand off of the camera and sand is really, really evil stuff for cameras.
Here is a ground level shot of him jumping.
I also tried a wide angle shot from almost ground level to create a "giant" kid shot. It's an amusing perspective, but it definitely has a gimmicky look that wears thin quickly.
I did a lot of shooting at the aquarium. It's a frustrating place to shoot because there is never enough light, the light is weird, and the glass is thick and distorting. I found the best results came from sticking the camera directly on the glass and shooting whatever was straight in front of me. Tilting the camera never seemed to work well. People probably thought I was a freak the way I'd move my camera up and down and side to side trying to set up a shot, but then, I'm kind of used to that.
This shot was at ISO 800, 50mm, f/2.5, and 1/30 of a second. There are a lot of things that could be improved (more DOF, faster shutter speed, more light on the top of the jellyfish, etc), but I still like it. It's actually upside down, but I think they look better this way.
The picture provoked a neighbor to ask me if I shot it through the glass. The only answer I could think of worthy of the question was "No, they let me swim in the jellyfish tank so that I could get a clear shot."
If you want to see more Aquarium shots, you can see them start here.
I never did have a really pretty sunset while we were there. I've found that on cloudless nights, the sky is usually a boring subject. The water, however, can be interesting when it captures the red/orange glow of the setting sun.
Here is a shot that I got of a seal hanging out on a rock at sunset. The shot was taken at f/5.6, 125mm, 1/25 seconds at ISO 100. I wanted a relatively slow shutter speed to get a little blur and softening in the water, but not enough to catch movement in the seal.
Here's a shot that I took with my widest lens aimed downward. I wanted to capture a lot of foreground and show Bird Roost (the big, white rock) off in the distance. I like the shot, but I think that it only works because I know the scale of what I'm looking at. To someone that has never been there, it probably just looks like a bunch of rocks and water.
