Hope everyone is having a safe and happy holiday weekend....I finally got a chance to pull some of the beach shots from last weekend off the old CF card:) My laptop is in the shop due to a virus, so I don't have access to my photoshop but hubs graciously let me use his computer. I figured I would post the SOOC (Straight out of camera shots) no cropping, adjusting the white balance (I admit, I completely flaked on the white balance and just used auto as you can tell) or anything! Eek...let's see if I followed the tutorials I posted about HERE
On Assateauge Island Day 1 - We went out midday which is tough because the son was almost directly overhead, giving some really harsh shadows. It was also ridiculously sunny, which is normally what you want when you go to the beach... but it's not what you want for beach pictures. A slightly overcast day would have worked out much better. Early morning or late afternoon right before dusk would have been perfect but nap time and bedtimes wouldn't cooperate so I made due with what we had.
This shot was little mans first dip in the ocean. Doesn't the water look so blue??? I can assure you it wasn't. I don't venture out in water that you can't see your feet in... I was permanently spoiled by Key West!
I think I did OK with the picture on the left. I will probably do a curves adjustment and crop a little, but overall not a bad candid pic.
I used my husbands pants as my point for exposure metering since the sand and ocean and little mans shirts are so light and hubs shirt is black... The pants were the closest I could get to gray since I didn't have a gray card with me.
Love this pic (going to get rid of the people in the background)... the surfer girl was a lot of fun... we were talking about the pending "appocalypse" that was supposed to occur that day and we agreed that we couldn't think of a better thing to do on our last day on earth than spend it at the beach... but I'm still glad I'm here now to talk about it:)
I think I did OK with the picture on the left. I will probably do a curves adjustment and crop a little, but overall not a bad candid pic.
I used my husbands pants as my point for exposure metering since the sand and ocean and little mans shirts are so light and hubs shirt is black... The pants were the closest I could get to gray since I didn't have a gray card with me.
Love this pic (going to get rid of the people in the background)... the surfer girl was a lot of fun... we were talking about the pending "appocalypse" that was supposed to occur that day and we agreed that we couldn't think of a better thing to do on our last day on earth than spend it at the beach... but I'm still glad I'm here now to talk about it:)
What a difference a day makes... below was our next day at the shore on the Ocean City MD beach... The day was overcast so the sand was more true to color, the shadows weren't so harsh and there was no squinting from looking into the sun. Perfect day for pictures. These were taken at the same time of day believe it or not.
There are so many more... I am thinking about posting to a photo share sight but right now here are the ones we will be using soon to discuss post processing and creative cropping. As soon as we get my laptop back, I can start post processing...I think the last two are slightly underexposed, so I will fix that, too.
Things I would have done (or done better) next time:
Bought a Polarizing filter - it would have made the sky and ocean "pop"
Used my flash to fill in some of the shadows to try to get rid of the "racoon eye effect"
Used a reflector to try to get rid of some of the harsh shadows
Changed the time of day of the shoot... Dusk and dawn would have added a warm hue to the skin tones.
Let me a comment to know what you think. When we do the post processing tutorial, I'll include all the data like what exposure and aperture I used.
