Travel Photography Tips & Tricks Series
Equipment: EOS 5D Mark III TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II 2-400 Variable ND Filter
EXIF: 24mm f /13.0 0.6Sec ISO 100
Travel Photography Waterscape – Colours of Vagator
During my 30-odd visits to Goa, the grey sea and the usual orange sunset held little excitement for me. I wanted to capture colour, dramatic colour. During my recent trip there, I decided to take a chance of making a picture on a particularly-cloudy evening, hoping the elements may paint a mesmerising scene.
I decided to use the ‘Shift’ feature of my ‘Tilt-Shift’ lens to get dramatically close to the not-so-gentle waves rushing towards the golden sands of Vagator.
To further enhance the drama, I decided to slow down the shutter speed. For this, I narrowed the aperture to f/13 (narrower than that would have led to diffraction), set the ISO to 100 and got to 1/320. That was not good enough. So, the decision was to use the 2-400 Variable ND Filter. That helped me stop down ~8 stops and I got to 0.6sec shutter speed.
After setting up the camera on the tripod and manually focussing at the hyper focal distance, I patiently waited. Soon enough, a brilliant turquoise sky produced a vibrant mix of white, yellow and orange clouds, while its reflection in water turned a cool blue and shades of peach. The clouds were also providing nice leading lines.
Suddenly, one wave decided to swirl up to the tripod providing perfect mirror-image leading lines to the dreamy, smoky water (thanks to my slow shutter speed) and I clicked. And, once I saw the result, an hour-and-fifteen-minute wait for a 0.6sec exposure seemed well worth it.
What are your tricks for getting a good waterscape?
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