Sunset on the beach

[dimwit]

Went out to Sullivan's Island a few times over the last few weeks. Here are the highlights.


1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

C&C is both welcomed and requested!

 

[Polyphony]

These are all underexposed and some of them are very noisy.

 

[Arkanjel Imaging]

And obnoxiously HUGE!

 

[dimwit]

Sorry about the sizing, it's showing up on my screen as automatically resized.

Noise is something I have been having problems with. These were all shot at a low ISO with approximately the proper shutter speed. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

 

[Polyphony]

Sorry about the sizing, it's showing up on my screen as automatically resized.

Noise is something I have been having problems with. These were all shot at a low ISO with approximately the proper shutter speed. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

Are you sure the ISO was low? like 100-200? Also use a tripod, that will help you get longer shutter speeds at low ISO with little to no apparent noise.

Edit: Also the image size is fine, they show up extremely large while the page is loading but when it is finished, all the pictures are a nice size.
Edit2: Btw, I really like the last one....mysterious.

 

[LarryD]

I show the ISO up at 800 on the first one....... much too high if you don't need it to get the shot, and the others at 400...

Noise can be an irritant, so try to stay at about ISO 100 or 200, then set your aperture where you want it for DOF, etc., - and then take a look at the shutter speed and see if that's what you can work with...... Adjust shutter and aperture first to change things how you might like them (histogram check perhaps) before you ever go much higher with the ISO .... You may be much happier with the results.......

 

[Shaneuk]

All of them are under-exposed and quite noisy. I think that 4 is the best though.

 

[VJS]

Yes, these are all underexposed. The noise works on #5 really well though.

I'd like to expand a bit on LarryD's advice...

First, never shoot higher than ISO 200 with the exception of only THREE instances :

#1 star shooting @ night
#2 early morning / mid evening animal shots
#3 You're inside, dimly lit and you have no flash
For all other applications, 200 ISO is the max you ever need to go.

Now, don't adjust your aperature for light gathering, especially in landscape / waterscape shots. Pick your focus and set your aperature to that. IE: if you want the 'whole thing' to be in focus, go at least F8. If you only want a piece of focus go lower than F5.6.

Use your shutter speed to gather light, not your aperature. While, yes, aperature affects the amount of light hitting the sensor,what it MORE affects, is your focusing.


Go back and try these again sometime with the above in your head. It will really change the way you go about taking lower lit images.

Hope these comments help you -- keep shooting.

 

[dimwit]

Thanks for all the help!

In the interest of some explanation: though I was shooting in manual, I was placing the priority on shutter speed so as to capture the motion of the waves in a particular way. That's not to say that I adjusted the other settings correctly, but I was attempting to adjust for (in most cases) a 0.4-0.6" shutter speed. As VJS suggested, though, I normally would adjust shutter speed to adjust light intake.

 

[TJ K]

Holy way too BIG image sizes Batman. I would definitely fix that asap.

 

[dimwit]

Holy way too BIG image sizes Batman. I would definitely fix that asap.

Should be good now. Sorry about that.