Salterstown Beach Revisited

I did manage to make it over to Salterstown today and before anybody asks I did not take the wife's car and my children did not have to walk to school. I might be mad but not stupid.
I got a lift from another photographer friend Ken Butterfield. This was new for him shooting landscapes because Ken normally shoots motor sports. I was in two mind whether to go or not, because I missed low tide. However as I always say to other photographers when I am teaching - Just get Out there.

So here is another image form the same location as the previous Salterstown post. By the time we arrived over there is was high tide and none of the rocks which I knew were visible. None the less we stayed at this spot for about an hour and the tide was starting to go out. With the tide being so high a different plan of action was called for. We concentrated of the movement of the waves and have some very interesting images to post later in the week.

We traveled around the coast to Dunny Point and finished the day at Port Beach. I have a few more interesting images to post later and a story about wet trousers.

The Cooleys & Mournes

It's very rare for me to shoot with a long telephone lens, but this image was taken with the 70-200 zoom. This is the image I was talking about in the Salterstown Beach post. It's taken from the same spot as the image in that post but as I said with a telephoto lens. I could not remember how to take the 24mm lens off the camera cause its that long ago now :-)
Again this was taken early in the morning looking across Dundalk Bay towards Carlingford and further on The Mourne Mountains, Co Down. Theses two images are going to cost me a lot of money me thinks. It's a long story but lets just say a got a flat tyre on my car and then damages the special wheel nut on the alloys. The car will have to go the garage and will have to either drill the nut out or take the whole hub off the car to remove the lock nut. Either way it's going to cost me. Oh well I will have to take the wife's little car now to go back over to Salterstown on Monday morning. The children will enjoy the walk to school ?

The things we do for our Photography !

Lightroom

Nothing to do with Black and White Landscapes but I use Adobe's Lightroom for converting RAW to B&W. If you use Lightroom may I point you to a site called:
Lightroom-Blog.com (News, Tips, Tricks and Workabouts)

A fellow Irish photographer Sean McCormack, from Co Galway runs this blog site but he is also one of the main contributors to the Lightroom News site.

One Locations Four Images

Downpatrich Head is one of my favourite locations. In the above image there are four photographs, some of which I have posted previously, all of which were taken within a few meters of each other. There are in sequence from top to bottom starting with the first one taken and then moving a couple of meters further down shoreline. What I want to show you with the above is just how different your image composition can be with a small move to the right, left, back or in the case forwards. Moving forward I found different compositions form the same location. It goes to show you that the best tool you can use for photography is your legs and eyes. In these images the camera position on the tripod did not change. I might have moved the filter a small bit to take into account the sky, but other than that nothing changes not even the exposure settings. I think this covers Tip No:3 in the "Shoot Better Landscape" posting series nicely.

Salterstown Beach

I was over on the east coast friday last in a place called Salterstown, Co Louth. It lies between Drogheda and Dundalk on the coast. It's a funny place because there is nothing there just fields a very narrow road right on the coast. However what a little gem of a location. I mean you pull over and stop your car (otherwise nothing can get passed) and take two steps and your on the beach.
We have had some very cold weather the passed few days with clear sky's and frosty mornings but wonderful sunrises and sunsets.

So with this in mind I checked the times for sunrise and the tide times. How may you ask ? Well with my best new toy, The iPhone. The amount of software you can get for the iPhone is amazing, and some of it is free to download. Using two of the app's for sunrise and tide times I knew at sunrise we will have a high tide. Not good, but none the less I still wanted to go over and see this location for myself. I have seen some wonderful colour photographs from Salterstown form another photographer called Richard Hatch. Richard lives over in that general direction and have known him for a good few years now. I have linked his name to his site with a selection of the colour images from here.
As he said himself "Salterstown is a fantastic location indeed but you really have to work out the tides and lighting up times. I have been there many times and got nothing but when you plan it correctly it turns out great. Its just a pity there isn't a wee bit more scale to the place. Everything is quite low if ye know what i mean...!".

When you see the place you will understand what Richie means by "quite low" as there is only a few rocks, some big ones, but nothing that stands out. However there is some great rock formations and with the right light wonderful. The background is taken care of by the mounatian ranges around Carlingford and The Mourne Mountains which can be seen in my image above, just about. I have a have a different image of just the mountains and will post that later.
With this image the elements were against me. High tide, low clouds, and the sunrise in the wrong location ie slightly behind the mainland so sun had to rise a good bit to light up the foreground. With the low cloud cover this would not happen. No problems, a return visit or maybe a few visits will solve that problem. I have checked the tide time and this coming Monday looks good so a return trip is on the cards.

Quiz Time

Can you guess what this is ?

OH ! hang on the answer is on my website.
OK what I will do is, the first person who can tell me the correct name will get a print of an image from the website (value 60euro). I will leave it open for the month of January.
Good Luck

Leave you answer as a comment with your name and email address.

Filter System

Here is a link I found to a book by Lee Frost called

"The Photographers Guide to Filters"

In this comprehensive guide Lee Frost offers clear answers to the many questions raised about this popular, but largely misunderstood, area of photography. Through easy-to-follow reference charts, specially commissioned comparison shots and inspiring images, beginners will see what filters are available and how to use them: the more experienced can use the images as a source of inspiration.

The Photographer's Guide to Filters

By Lee Frost

Published by David & Charles, 2002

ISBN 0715314009, 9780715314005

160 pages

Shoot Better Landscapes Part 2

Here is the second and final part of the Tips and Tricks to shoot better landscapes.

The tips were taken from 'Outdoor  Photography' magazine in their December issue.

"101 ways to take better landscape photographs - Improve your landscape technique by following our extensive guide. We asked 10 of your favourite outdoor photographers for their expert advice and tuition."

I have only posted 51 between the two posts which I use on a regular basis.  So enjoy the following tips and lets hope you have learned something: 

28. Be Original: Use your widest or smallest aperture to take depth of field to extremes. If you want to interpret the landscape in your own way then depth of field should be seen as a key tool.

29. Emphasise scale of landscape: With small apertures, exploit front-to-back sharpness by including foreground interest. This will emphasise the scale of landscapes, especially when you're using a wideangle lens.

30. Look for linear features: It pays to look for linear features which run front to background ,such as dry-stone walls or plough lines in fields. Set your smallest aperture and include them in your compositions for pictures with a dynamic look.

31. Hyperfocal distance: focusing at the hyperfocal distance gives you the maximum depth of field for any given aperture. To do this, first set your lens to manual focus and then refer to the depth of field scale on the lens barrel (if you have one). Then adjust the focusing ring so that the infinity marker is aligned with the chosen aperture value. The lens is now focused at the hyperfocal distance.

32. Appreciate light: in all its many variations and learn to see it to your advantage.

33. Sunrise and sunset: These are the conventional times for the majority of landscape photography. The low angle of the sun creates modelling of the landscape, conveying a sense of depth, while the apparent warmth of the light adds emotional impact.

34. Into the sun: Choose a morning or evening with broken cloud and wait for the moment when the sun begins to appear in a gap, before it gets too strong. ND grad filters will be vital to retain a balanced exposure.

35. Backlight: Autumn leaves, water droplets on trees and plants, and ice all lead themselves to a touch of backlighting for that added sparkle.

36. Explosive light: On a stormy day brave the elements and you may be rewarded with stunning moments when the sun bursts through a gap in the clouds. Nothing beats a landscape set ablaze with dark clouds glower in the distance.

37. Mist and fog: perfect for isolating subjects and adding a sense of mystery to your shots. Mist can diffuse sunlight wonderfully, creating an ambient glow in the landscape.

38. Maximise image quality: buy the best quality filters you can afford.

39. Positioning your polariser: A polariser's greatest effect can be found at 90 degrees to the sun. To help find this angle, make a 'gun' with your forefinger and thumb. Then, simply point at the sun and rotate your thumb 90 degrees either side.

40. Using multiple filters: Vignetting can prove a problem when using multiple filters or a holder. Before shooting, check for darkening of the frame's corners by taking a test shot of a light coloured subject, like the sky. If vignetting is present, adjust accordingly.

41. Remenber: Filters can't magically transform a poor picture or boring scene into a good one; they can only enhance an already well lit and composed image.

42. White Balance: If you shoot digitally, your camera's white balance setting can be utilised as a great form of creative in-camera filtration. Select a low colour temperature to create a cool colour cast, or a high one to add a warm, orange hue.

43. Expose for the highlights: When shooting for slide film or digital you must expose for the highlights. Over-exposed highlights will contain no information and will ruin your picture.

44. Expose to the right: When shooting digital expose to the right ie adjust your exposure so that the histogram gets as close to the right-hand side as possible without clipping the highlights.

45. Contrast is the enemy: of colour photography. Over-exposed areas will appear white; under-exposed areas will appear black, regardless of their actual colour. If contrast is too great, consider using a neutral density graduated filter. If this isn't an option, consider changing your composition.

46. Sunny 16 rule: If you find yourself without a light meter, remember the 'sunny 16' rule. The correct exposure for an average scene taken on a bright sunny day is f/16 at 1 over the ISO setting ie at iso 100 use 1/100sec at f/16.

47. Exposure compensation: Your camera's meter expects the subject to be a mid-tone grey (18%) and will suggest an exposure that will recreate this. If your subject is brighter (eg a snow scene) you must over expose ie dial in positive exposure compensation.

48. Shoot in RAW: There's simply no sense in shooting Jpegs if your camera can capture Raw files. Like the latent image on undeveloped film, the raw file can be 'processed' in unlimited ways and can never be overwritten.

49. Go non-destructive with Adjustment layers: If you apply Photoshop edits as adjustment layers, you can keep the image in a state of permanent flux. This way, there's no need  to make a long sequence of correct edits, as you can go back and change earlier commands until you've created the desired effect.

50. Sharpen as the final command: Always apply the sharpening command as the final step in your editing sequence. Just like using a focus finder to tweak your enlarger lens in the darkroom, sharpening extracts the maximum detail from your image, but if additional edits are applied afterwards, the image will start to get noisy.

51. Print with profiles: If you've spent hours fiddling around with printer software, then its time to use proper paper profiles to print with. Available as a free download from all good paper manufacturers, profiles are tiny data files that translate the colour of your pixels for use with specific ink, paper and printer combinations.

What The Duck

Happy New Year

Well I didn't manage to get today (New Years Day) for the family walk in the mountains. Let's just say the weather was not the best and leave it at that ?

Instead here is another image taken last week when I was over in Westport. This was taken at the far end of Fallduff Beach with Croagh Patrick been lit by the last rays of sun  before the sun sets. On the full size raw version you can make out the church on the summit of the mountain. Thinking it was a piece of dirt here was I  going to remove it. Again a slow shutter speed was result of a small aperture (f/16). The front grad filter was covered with water spray after this image and I did not notice it until after I had finished the shoot and was packing the camera away. Lucky for me the best images were taken before the spray.

Christmas Holidays

I am just back from a few days over in Westport on a short break after all the rushing around before, during and after Christmas. The children love the idea of the holidays and are always asking when and where are we going next. This time we went over to the west coast, Westport Co Mayo. The weather was wonderful with nice sunny days (great for getting out but no clouds for my photography) and cold nights. I did manage to get out every morning for sunrise and evening sunsets because this time of the year the days are short with sunrise at 8:50 and sunset at 16:30 or there about. The above image was taken down on Keem Beach, Achill Island. You follow the road all the way along the island until you can go no further.  This is one amazing drive down towards the beach as the road is right on the side of the mountain with just a grass bank between the road and a couple of hundred meters drop into the ocean. The best piece of equipment any photographer should have with them is a pair of wellies. The tripod and myself were in the water for this image (my poor tripod goes through hell). The amount of visitors on the beach who were standing well back so not to get their feet wet, but not me and my tripod. I must have gave them a good laugh. I love the way movement of the water is captured (using a slow shutter speed) and the ripples patterns in the sand in this image. I have a load of images from here trying to get the water and sand movement sequence right and  I think this is the best one. Look out for more posts form this my final photo trip of the year. I will not be taking and more photos until the annual family New Years Day walk in the mountains.

Camera Lens Hood ?

How do you protect your camera from the elements?
Answer: a Fedora !
No seriously, this comes in very handy when you want to shade the front element of your lens from the sun. You can't your your standard lens hood when you use your filters and the cost of a lens hood for the Lee Filter system is mad. Cable release in one hand and the hat in the other. Take your image then put the hat back on your head to protect you from the sun. Works both ways. A wonderful cost saving tip in these hard times.

Thanks to Peter Cox for the use of his spare hat in the making of this image.