Here is a photo from my series taken on Boxing Day 2008 at The Oaks just west of Inverloch, Victoria. We scouted beaches for an hour and a half prior, to see what would be the most photogenic and that would line up nicely with the setting sun. I couldn’t really see the sun because the clouds were very thick and dark and it had been raining on and off all day. I just used my $2 eBay compass to guess where it might set. I was optimistic in waiting for a decent sunset, but I set up my trusty Benro tripod and shot away many different compositions until I saw the best sunset I have ever seen.

Thanks to Neale, Merril and Belinda for the accomodation, the great BBQ and help.

For those intersted in the process of taking this photo, I will elaborate. Above all (besides a good sturdy tripod) you need a great deal of patience, persistance and a mild level of fitness (because the walk back to the car up the hill was murder).

The equipment I used was a Canon EOS 50D 15.1MP digital camera, a Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 lens, A Benro Aluminium 3 Section Tripod (a 6ft tall sturdy one), a polarizer filter to reduce glare off the rocks and to soak up two stops of light to slow down the shutter speeds, a Neutral Density Graduated filter in a Cokin P series holder to darken the sky by about 3 or so stops (its a very dark filter). A cable release was used so I didn’t touch the camera causing shake or vibrations and the SLR mirror was locked up to further avoid camera shake.

The camera was set to ISO100 to make sure the sensor noise level would be at its lowest and to make the camera less sensitive to light. With the polarizer filter and ND Grad it resulted in a 1.6 second exposure at f8, which is the sharpest aperture of the lens. I used the evaluative metering mode to get a good exposure balance.

For a full run down on the EXIF data, see it here http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcelvanderhorst/3266595024/meta/

Next post I’ll show how it was edited in Photoshop.

Until next time, have a great day.

P.S. My heart goes out to the people effected by the Bushfire crisis in Victoria at the moment.