The weather on Sunday morning was much better than the previous Morning. While there were a few clouds about about, the sky was largely clear there was some thicker cloud on the horizon so I didn't expect much pre sawn glow. At this time of year the sun rises toward the south eastern side of the Island, so while I would have preferred the best light possible, its not the end of the world, and its certainly better than yesterdays driving rain!
I set up down by the slip way before dawn, initially with my 24 – 70 f4, my hope was to catch some movement in the waves with the shutter at ¼ second.
The movement worked out well, but I couldn’t quite get the composition right. I did crop an image to get these two images. Let me know which you prefer below. I felt that with the light still on the blue hue, it didn’t quite have the right impact I hoped it might.
Exposure: Nikon Z7 - Nikkor Z 24 - 70 f4 S @ 24mm - f9 - 1/4 Second ISO64
As the sun rose the tide reached its highest. At this point I decided to move a little higher with my 70 – 200 f2.8 This was because the waves were moving up too quickly meaning that I was constantly recomposing the camera. Given the wind and size of the waves I didn’t have the confidence to risk leaving the camera where it was on the tripod or to get my feet wet. The tide in Jersey moves very fast, and it it can be all to easy to miss judge the size of the waves which can be very very dangerous.
Exposure: Nikon Z7 - Nikkor Z 24 - 70 f4 S @ 24mm - f9 - 1/4 Second ISO64
The wind was so strong that the sea spray was quite an issue. I was only able to get 4-5 shots before the filter needed cleaning with a lens cloth. I only had my UV filter on, no circular polariser.
With the sunlight shining, the atmosphere in changed, and it shows. There still a cold blue tone, but it gives the waves and sea a bit more saturation, contrast.
I got two decent shots here. The first is this square crop from a vertical image. The second was a stack of two images. One focused on the foreground and the other on the waves near the lighthouse. At f8 this gave enough depth of field to get an image that was sharp from front to back.
Exposure: Nikon Z7 - Sigma 70 - 200mm f2.8 APO DG HSM (Adapted) @ 86mm - f8.0 - 1/200 Second ISO125
Is it cheating? Perhaps a little, normally stacking is a great way to ensure detail front to back lost by diffraction at higher higher apertures. It is still the case here, I could concentrate on taking shots based on where I was focusing, however it also allowed me to pick and choose the best foreground/background combination. To me this is creating the view as I saw it. I would personally draw the line at say editing in say the moon in the back ground. Wait that’s an idea!! haha
I will in another blog go through the various processes I use to stack images and the best application for them.
I hope this was useful, and you enjoy the images!
Exposure: Nikon Z7 - Sigma 70 - 200mm f2.8 APO DG HSM (Adapted) @ 82mm - f7.1 - 1/250 Second ISO160