While digging through my archives the other day I came upon some of my Gray Whale Cove photos that I hadnt posted. I also noticed I had this photo which I had dismissed but a couple months later, Im starting to digg. Ive ireally/i been trying to get away from HDR now that I bought a set of ND Grad Filters but this shot became an HDR due to the fact that I didnt have filters during this photo shoot and I was going to miss the sunset in the sky if I didnt exposure blend. I love the movement of the water in this shot, but in my original version of this I thought the rocks had a little bit too much HDR feel. I went back and re-edited this to blend in the normal exposure rocks and make it more life-like.
Back in March I went on over to Gray Whale Cove in Half Moon Bay to shoot sunset. The photoshoot almost got cancelled because of the (sad) earthquake in Japan that had happened a couple days prior. The tsunami hit California in the morning of our photoshoot and most of the beaches were closed, but by sunset we were able to hit the coast and catch some big waves. I arrived at Gray Whale Cove and Willie was already setup with his super wide lens for the perfect photo. This is a blend of 2 photos (not an HDR): I took an under-exposed photo to get the sunset, and took a normal photo to get the water motion.
During this photo shoot I realized how useful a filter holder and set of graduated filters really was. Willie got some igreat/i shots and all I got was a blown out sky It was this photoshoot that convinced me to go buy my set of soft ND grads.
After taking the photos by a set of rock outcroppings at sunset I decided I wanted to try a different spot with water going over the rocks. You couldnt really see much of the colorful sunset, since there wasnt much color in the sky, but I did take a couple photos and came out with this one. I liked the finished product.
Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S:
28mm, f/10, 0.6 sec, ISO 200, Tripod
