Colour & Contrast Question - Sand Dunes & Beach

[foxee]

controlling sand colours at capture time

Hi to everyone, I'm new here to the forums as I need some specific advice please. I do 90% of my photographic work on or around the beach, but I dont know how to control the saturation and contrast of the sand colours in my photographs. The image below is an example of what I'd like to capture, good detail and tones instead of my usual burnt out white dunes.
Please help with any advice you can give on the subject.. thanks!

 

[Patrice]

I hope you spark a discussion on this, I'm hoping to learn from the replies.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

Easy, just expose for the sand and make sure the lighting is on an angle to create texture. Than go into photoshop to fine tune it.

 

[newrmdmike]

poof, magic. its like pie. if the sand is white or near white then i would overexpose it about 2 stops over. for other people it may be more like three, but thats with my meter. . .. so just experiment in the same spot until you get it right, and then you hsould know what it takes.

 

[PetersCreek]

I also get the impression that the OP photo was taken on a lightly overcast or partly cloudy day, since the shadows aren't full-sun-stark.

 

[The_Traveler]

if the sand is white or near white then i would overexpose it about 2 stops over.

It might be useful to explain this sentence. Since your camera wants to make everything average out to a neutral grey, if bright sand takes up a good part of the lens field, your camera will try and make that neutral grey so the shot will be underexposed by 2 or 3 stops. The photog needs to compensate for this.

 

[newrmdmike]

what he said, haha.

 

[foxee]

aaaaaaaaah. I was wondering why I'd oever expose on what was already overexposed... to compensate what the camera software will do

thanks heaps, I'll give that a go shortly. Cheers everyone

 

[The_Traveler]

If you have a camera that shows a histogram on its LCD, use that to help with exposure.

What you don't want is any spike on the right side; that indicate amount of blown highlights.