Photographing Sea and Beaches
1. Use a wide angle lens, get low and include foreground interest.
2. Look for lighthouses, lifeguard houses, life buoys, rock
formations, patterns in the sand, cliffs, big waves, people,
sandcastles, shells and sea life, these can be used to create
depth in a scene.
3. Aperture, if you found an object to focus on select a shallow
depth of field i.e. f/5.6 to blur out the beach background.
4. Shooting a sunset, select a higher depth of field i.e. f/16.
5. Tripod and a remote switch are essential, when setting the
tripod up on sand place a disc under each leg of the tripod
to prevent them from sinking into the sand, I made up
three square aluminum plates with a hole in the center
of each for the leg and a raised clip on each plate for lifting
the plate from the sand.
6. Weather, photography stormy conditions for more drama.
7. Use polarizing filters, water is reflective so use your polarizing
filter to remove glare from waves and also to saturate blues.
8. Sand and water can play havoc with camera equipment, a few
tips to minimize damage, use UV filters to protect lens front
elements while in transit, do not change lenses while on the
beach, always close your bag after opening it to retrieve
equipment to prevent sand contamination, always clean your
camera, lenses and filters when you back home, using the
blower first to get rid of and solid matter then a lint free cloth to
remove and smudges, always have a bag handy in case your
camera needs to be covered to prevent water damaged from
rain or sea water.