Ocean in Movement

[rjgjr]

Went down to the beach last evening to try my hand at catching some water movement after sunset. The tide was actually a little lower than I had hoped for but it's a start. I think it would be even better when darker and moonlight illuminating the water. I'll try that at a later date. Always a work in progress, trying different exposures, and the multitude of images are still free!

1/10 sec  f14



13 sec  f22



8 sec  f10

[martinastro]

Impressive images Richard, my hat goes off to no.2 - stunning 

[markt]

Brilliant shots Richard, very atmospheric! 

[Paul]

Hey Richard, I'm with Martin on this - #2 is the business! Lovely shots all, but that's the standout. I can't help but wonder what a landscape format version of it would be like - same focal length, same everything, just camera orientation different. Awesome probably

[Tyler]

Awesome Richard! I bet #1 would be great at 1"

[rjgjr]

Thanks for the comments all.
Paul, I'll go back and check the RAW images around that one again. When I went through them these were the only ones that really stood out. You know each minute and image brings different effects and lighting. A small panoramic would really be awesome, I'm sure someone has done it, but it's beyond my capability and patience lol.

[paulster78]

Excellent Richard,  I love the contrast in 2 & 3 

[rjgjr]

Paul, this landscape view is a slightly wider angle view and doesn't have nearly the "dry ice" effect on the water as the portrait view but I guess it works as well. I plan on plenty of practice in the future. Thanks again for the comment.

[brianb]

That last one works well for me. When I was experimenting with this sort of thing I found that - for me - an exposure of about 2 sec was good, the idea being to get motion blurring of the surface but still show some of the gross shape of the waves.

Low ISO and a mild ND filter are more or less required. An additional graduated ND is useful for bringing out detail in the sky.

The colour balance changes very fast as the sun is setting too. It's difficult to get right, though you can of course adjust the colour balance posthumously when shooting raw digital. The one thing you can be certain of is that "auto" will get it wrong!

[rjgjr]

Thanks for your great insight and comments as usual Brian. There is such a fine line between correctness and overdoing it on an image like this. I agree with trying to get some shape in a wave such as a folding, melting marshmallow, which I did in several shots that had other problems with them. The tide was so low and breaking so far away from the rocks it really wasn't working anymore at that point. I've never owned a ND filter, may have to try it out some day. The sky was just flat and hazy with really no texture at all. I'll just keep experimenting and get a good one once in awhile.

[JohnC]

You've done a good job with them,Richard and  as Brian says the ND and grad filters are essential-they're graded  in stops but they say that most use will be had from the 2-stop both ND and grad,I use the 2-stop grad  a lot to avoid an underexposed,hence very often black,foreground and of course you'll get cloud detail too.

[jgs001]

Lovely set Richard... #2 is superb. I've got a 10 stop ND and a set of ND grads, but have so far not had a chance to use them....