When the sun had set sufficiently low I took up position on the rocks. I set up the tripod and attached my Canon 5D fitted with the Canon 17-40L and a Lee 0.9 soft Grey Grad filter. Then I attached the Hahnel wireless remote control so as to eliminate camera shake. (That remote control - available from around €55 - is one of the best accessories you can buy).
Just as the sun was approaching the brow of the hill I set the camera to manual and took several exposures using an f/20 aperture setting and a shutter speed of 3 secs. I needed a long-ish exposure in order to capture that flow effect in the waves (such as they were- the sea was very calm). The f/20 setting also produced the star-burst effect in the sun. This was the shot I was most pleased with:
I've posted the shot on a few websites including Photosig (www.photosig.com) where it was featured as Number 1 photo on the front page based on the positive feedback from viewers:
A few minutes after the sun had disappeared from view I moved location slightly and captured the following shot:
Again, I'm very pleased with the result. In both cases the Lee filter has done an outstanding job in holding back the brightness of the sky without any colour cast. Lee filters are ridiculously expensive but they do what they say on the tin and I think they are a good investment.
Both RAW shots were post-processed in Canon's excellent DPP software with only minimal adjustments in Photoshop CS2.
Nice work John - up to your usual high standards.
ReplyDeletePersonally I prefer the second shot as there is more going on in the foreground.