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Behind The Lens

Location

I took this photo at a place called Goosespit in Comox, Vancouver Island. It's one of my favorite places on our beautiful island.

Time

My husband and I had a long over due date night. We have 2 young boys so date nights are few and far between. We decided to head to the beach for a walk after dinner. We watched the sun go down behind the mountains and it was so warm and peaceful. It's always beautiful there at sunset. This photo was taken at 7:31pm on July 9th, 2016.

Lighting

I used natural light.... naturally! Ha! I usually like to shoot with a low f stop to allow lots of light in and for a shallow depth of field. However, for this shot I wanted to get more of the sunburst effect so I gradually increased the f stop until I was happy with the sunburst at f/8. This made my image slightly underexposed, but that is easily fixed in post-processing.

Equipment

I shot this with my Sigma ART 18-35mm f1.8 lens on my Nikon D7100 camera. Handheld, no flash.

Inspiration

I have a bit of an obsession with the sky and clouds. I always have my camera with me in the car so when I saw this beautiful sky on our walk I ran back to the car to get it. I have been trying to capture the sun poking through the clouds like this for a while and was so happy to finally capture it. This is my happy place. I feel the warm sun on my face whenever I look at it.

Editing

I used LightRoom to process this shot. I increased exposure slightly along with contrast, whites, vibrancy, and clarity. I increased saturation on oranges, yellows ands blues. I decreased highlights, shadows and blacks and sharpened the entire image. I also enabled profile correction for my lens which helped straighten out the horizon.

In my camera bag

I upgraded to the Nikon D7100 early this year from the D90. I had to sell the D90 to upgrade so my D7100 is my only camera body. The Sigma ART 18-35mm f1.8 was permanently affixed to my camera for about 3 months and I didn't carry any other lenses with me for the longest time. I just purchased a second hand Nikkor 17-55mm f2.8 a few weeks ago so that has taken the Sigmas place for the time being. I have started to carry a couple more lenses with me now too. I carry my Nikkor 50mm f1.8 and Nikkor 18-140mm (yes a kit lens!) I actually really love that kit lens, I get nice sharp images with it and pretty decent bokeh. It's just not so great in low light. I also carry around a yongnuo 560 IV speedlight. Though I very rarely use flash it's good to have just in case. Of course I also always carry an extra charged battery and a handful of SD cards.

Feedback

While I always have my camera with me I seldom bring or use a tripod. I don't like to feel tied down with equipment. I like to feel free to move around even with landscape shots. I spend a good majority of my time shooting landscapes sitting on the ground. I like to get as low as possible and I pull my knees up to my chest and rest my arm on my knees to stabilize the camera. I definitely had to be patient to capture the perfect time where the sun was just poking out enough from behind the clouds. I always underexpose shots like this to ensure I capture all the fine details of the sky.

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