Long Exposure Seascape
While shooting this past summer on Big Stone Beach on the Delaware shore, I was able to capture this image at sunset. A wicked thunderstorm moved in and dumped a tremendous amount of rain. I was on location with a few other photographers and we all took of running for shelter as lightning bolts and heavy rain pounded us on the beach. I took shelter at the far end of the beach and waited out the weather. After the storm passed and soaking wet, I ran towards the water as the rain broke to see the clouds moving quickly across the sky. The sun had set and there was a strong pink glow on the horizon. I set my composition and dialed in my aperture and f stop. I was at f14 at 4 seconds at ISO 100. I wanted to lengthen the exposure time to allow the clouds and water to really blur out in the shot. Not wanting to stop down any further than f14 to maintain superior optical quality, I threw on my Singh Ray Vari ND filter. This allowed me to to darken the overall scene and run an exposure of 30 seconds as opposed to 4 seconds.
really nice shot with complete blur..very painterly feel. When you say “Not wanting to stop down any further than f14 to maintain superior optical quality” how does stopping down further reduce quality?
Hi Jim. Thanks for visiting the blog. what I mean is that all lenses have a “sweet spot”. At a certain aperture range you get the maximum amount of resolving power from that particular lens. This was shot with my Nikor 12-24mm and on that lens the sweet spot is between f9 and f14. I try to shoot the majority of my images at these aperture setting. That being said, there are of course times when you will need to stop down further for increased depth-of-field. Hope this explains it.
Hi Joseph,
Wonderful picture. I am just wondering – using a wide angle lens – don’t you get a significant amount of vignetting using the Vari-ND filter?
Micheal, yes when zoomed out past 15mm I do get alot of vignetting. This was shot at 15 or 16mm on the lens to avoid that problem.