Sea Foam
The pier at Virginia Beach. I've never seen so much sea foam as I did the night I took this shot. The wind was strong and waves were huge too, hence the no...
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The pier at Virginia Beach. I've never seen so much sea foam as I did the night I took this shot. The wind was strong and waves were huge too, hence the not completely placid looking ocean, and the foam kept flying up and blowing all over the place. Fun stuff.
2015-09-27 Beach 10
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2015-09-27 Beach 10
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Sep, 2015Views
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Contest Finalist in Long Exposure Views Photo Contest
Winner in Piers Photo Challenge
Contest Finalist in Along The Shore Photo Contest
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Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo at the main pier down Virginia Beach.Time
This was taken in the blue hour just after sunset.Lighting
In addition to the lights seen on the pier in this shot, there's a lot of light coming from a restaurant that's on the pier diagonally behind me on the left. Also, there's a spot in the sky that might appear unusually bright. That's light coming down from the super moon we had in September of this year. This image was taken that evening, the 27th I think it was.Equipment
I used a Nikon D5500 with a Tokina ultra-wide angle lens at 16mm, on a tripod, no flash.Inspiration
I was actually out with the objective of shooting the super moon/blood moon/eclipse that night. Unfortunately, there was so much cloud cover, that I got very little of the moon until about 3:00 a.m., long after the eclipse was over. But, I took the opportunity to shoot the pier while I was at the beach.Editing
Post processing was pretty usual for this image. I ran it through Adobe Camera Raw, pushed and pulled the sliders as needed, sharpened and removed noise in Photoshop, boosted the colors just a tad.In my camera bag
Nowadays, I carry a Nikon D5500 with 6 lenses (5 Nikon, 1 Tonika - ranging from 11mm to 300mm), a Jobi tripod, a Benro tripod, several filters, a wireless remote, and other misc accessories.Feedback
Advice on this? Make sure to avoid sea foam! That's right. It may sound funny, but blowing sea foam is not great for a camera's insides and was actually a pretty big consideration during this shot. I would have liked to get lower for framing this, but there was no way I was going to set the tripod any lower with the conditions that night. The foam was blowing all over the place and, though you can't see it due to the long exposure, the sea was really volatile with high waves meaning my gear was at risk as it was. So, that's the first bit of advice. Watch your equipment while at the beach. Sand, salt, foam, all of it can kill your equipment. Other than that, blue hour (the hour after sunset) is a great time to shoot. Get there early to be all set up before the lighting is right. The good lighting doesn't last long, after all. To get placid water, you need to shoot long exposures, typically 20 to 30 seconds, so you need to be on a tripod. I highly recommend a wireless remote, else you'll see blur from the slight shake that happens when you press the shutter release. You have to know how to read a histogram so that you know if your image is properly exposed because it will appear very bright on your LCD when you're in low lighting. If you want to get lights, such as city lights, to appear with stars, use a smaller aperture. Always shoot in RAW and learn how to post process, even if not in Photoshop than in Adobe Camera RAW, Lightroom, or some other easy program.
