Advice for early morning ocean shots?

beachgirl wrote:
OMG! I can't even handle regular coffee...I'm naturally hyper/nervous. I stick with irish cream hot coco from starbucks. Where do you stay when you go to the Monterey area? We have a friend in Pacific Grove who is offering his guest quarters. I'm excited too, we are going to check out Point Lobos one of the days. China Beach is really pretty. That whole Monterey to Carmel and beyond is just awsome. Can't wait to see some of your pics. We really need a break too. No better place to just kick it.

actually this will be our first offical trip to monterey area. before i just went there for golfing with the guys. but this is our first trip together with our weiner dog, chloe. so we'll be staying at hyatt or something like that.

[QUOTE=lmitch6]Beachgi​rl,

Thanks for the compliment!!! I really apprecieate it!. It's not too hard, the only real trick I had to master is not being so close to the surf that the tripod legs start sinking as the waves recede - made for some really funny moments though! I always remind myself of the saying that

"photography is 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration"

I'm planning a trip up through Big Sur and on to Monterey, so I'm looking forward to hearing about your experience,

quote]

That is so true . Hopefully I'll have a great experience to tell about.

lmitch6.. your photos are wonderful! beautiful shots! too bad i don't have a tripod yet... so looks like i'll probably have to shot handheld and hope for the best...

First time to sight see Monterey area? I'm shocked You will love it. Check out Point Lobos state Park. Tons of photo opts. http://www.pelicannetw​ork.net/pointlobos1.ht​ml

Thanks for your kind words! I'd pick up an 'el-cheapo' tripod to get you through if you plan on taking long exposures. Depending on the location, you can also hunt for a decent rock, ledge, tree branch, chair, etc., to set the camera on or brace yourself for a shot.

Or, take a ziploc bag and fill it with sand to make a cheap beanbag, these can work pretty good in a pinch too.

thanks BG!! going to forward that to wify so she can plan our route. any advice on where to go eat locally that's really good for the tummy and wallet?

Good Idea!

Well.... Good places to eat? I love Bubba Gumps on Cannery Row. But it's not to wallet friendly. Real fun place though. On Fishermans Warf lots of sea food, and not to badly priced. It is pricey to eat at resturants in the tourist area's, We like to hit the safeway and pack our own food. Plus that way you can get the best seats(on the beach)and most of the beaches are not "sandy" the are more tiny pebbels or shells. So no extra crunchy's in your sandwhich's

beachgirl wrote:
Well.... Good places to eat? I love Bubba Gumps on Cannery Row. But it's not to wallet friendly. Real fun place though. On Fishermans Warf lots of sea food, and not to badly priced. It is pricey to eat at resturants in the tourist area's, We like to hit the safeway and pack our own food. Plus that way you can get the best seats(on the beach)and most of the beaches are not "sandy" the are more tiny pebbels or shells. So no extra crunchy's in your sandwhich's

ic... yeah we're planning on packing some food to bring along. just thought perhaps there's some of those specially priced local places. i know of one place in big sur that on tuesdays any oysters are only 65 cents each. got that from watching rachel ray~

EOS mE wrote:
ic... yeah we're planning on packing some food to bring along. just thought perhaps there's some of those specially priced local places. i know of one place in big sur that on tuesdays any oysters are only 65 cents each. got that from watching rachel ray~

I really don't like sea food, ask some locals I'm sure there are good deals somewhere. Rachel Ray...I watch her too.

Don't worry about the brain scrambling. I remember going out on one night shoot and still being a n00b at that time with no more than six months on my 350D.

I didn't have the time or inclination to play with M mode. I know how to use it, and I still have a marked preference for letting the camera do the work. I used Av. First sequence of shots was taken wide open at ISO 100, which yielded nice exposures. I combined this with a trick I'd learned earlier, when shooting at dusk or afterwards, use -2/3 exposure compensation.

Check the LCD, I noticed that the water in my shots was a little bit rough, so I figured I would need a longer exposure. First set of shots was from 1-3 seconds. I started stopping down the aperture until the meter was giving me the longer durations I wanted - anywhere from 5-20 seconds, to achieve the blur effect. Shoot, look, re-shoot. I don't care what people call it, chimping or otherwise (though some say it's only considered chimping when you make the "ooh ooh ahh ahh" sounds.. I never go that far), I'll look at the LCD.

Blurred water, 5 seconds. In retrospect I'd have given it 10 seconds.

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Lightstream wrote:
Don't worry about the brain scrambling. I remember going out on one night shoot and still being a n00b at that time with no more than six months on my 350D.

I didn't have the time or inclination to play with M mode. I know how to use it, and I still have a marked preference for letting the camera do the work. I used Av. First sequence of shots was taken wide open at ISO 100, which yielded nice exposures. I combined this with a trick I'd learned earlier, when shooting at dusk or afterwards, use -2/3 exposure compensation.

Check the LCD, I noticed that the water in my shots was a little bit rough, so I figured I would need a longer exposure. First set of shots was from 1-3 seconds. I started stopping down the aperture until the meter was giving me the longer durations I wanted - anywhere from 5-20 seconds, to achieve the blur effect. Shoot, look, re-shoot. I don't care what people call it, chimping or otherwise (though some say it's only considered chimping when you make the "ooh ooh ahh ahh" sounds.. I never go that far), I'll look at the LCD.

Blurred water, 5 seconds. In retrospect I'd have given it 10 seconds.

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20 seconds. Around the 9 o'clock position in the photo you can see some of the water, and it has blurred even more into a solid sheet with the lights reflecting off it.

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It is a beautiful place.. in fact it is where one of the photos for the EOS 30D white paper was taken.

You might not like all the photos you come back with - out of the 100 frames I shot that night, obviously not every one turned out as nice. But I think you will find the few that make the entire shoot worthwhile. For me, all I need is one absolutely breathtaking image from a shoot and I can forget about every one of the other couple of hundred I botched (and since I'm a hobbyist I don't have a boss breathing down my neck asking about the botched ones either I have that at work..)

Wow lightstream, Big Thanks for the pictorial, This is great. I guess this is my first really thought out shoot. I have a vision in my head(scary..lol) I looked up a photographer I read aboout here, Marc E Adamus. And https://photography-on-the.net …ht=sunset+shot+​in+2+hours

These works are what I'm hoping to even get close to. IF I get only one good shot I'll be happy. So we'll see, I'll be so bummed if I botch this.

lightstream.. those are beautiful photos!! good suggestions.. cuz this will be the first time going to that location to take photos.. so i'm going to try not to pressure myself too much. if i could get a couple of good photos.. i should be happy.. right??

Thanks beachgirl, EOS mE!

I think the whole idea is to keep a cool head and don't put pressure on yourself. I dunno about others, but the odd thing is that I find I work better WITHOUT the pressure - it lets me focus on what matters most.

My strategy for going out on 'unknown' shoots is to budget for time, during that night shoot I had 2 hours, and took around 120 frames. Take lots of storage. Keep shooting. Change your settings, try different things. Shoot the same scene multiple times with different settings and cull the best. (We're all still learning!)

And my backup: Set the camera to Program AE mode and take a couple of frames as 'insurance'! That way if I TOTALLY botch up the settings, the camera will give me something that is at least reasonable (within its capabilities) and something to show for my effort of hauling it out there. Program AE takes a lot of flak but in my work with the cameras, I've found that it is actually quite intelligent. I know its behavior sort of well enough to guess how it will behave in a given situation.

Having a vision is good.. work on it look at your LCD monitor, shoot, re-shoot, and re-shoot again. Empty the CF, [digital] 'film' is free these days, come back and look at your EXIF. This will give you an idea of what settings you used for each shot, and what works. I have a sequence of frames from that shoot, I change one setting per frame, so I can see the effect. After a while you'll get to know what effects you want.

All the best and hope all of you come back with something good! it needn't be perfect, you just need to be happy with it. Like my water - maybe I would have given it 10 seconds but it is nice enough as it is already.