I’m just back from a trip to the Northumberland coast. Although I’m still suffering the effects of the Flu (I don’t think it could have been the Flu, given how it’s lingering), it was a fantastic trip with lots of photography opportunities.
Something that’s often not appreciated is how good the light is on the coast in many locations. Some claim this is nonsense, but being on the coast genuinely affects light quality. I saw it several times on this trip, most noticeable when travelling down the A1 to visit Holy Island.
The clouds were thick across the sky, but on the right side, over the sea, they appeared blue and bright. Then, as I looked to my left, over the land, the same clouds were grey and dull. The difference was stark and caused by the light reflecting off the sea. I have seen this effect many times before, but it seemed more noticeable on this occasion.
Anyway, that’s enough of the science lesson. Let’s look at a few shots from the first evening.
This is a shot of the Castle from the beach at Bamburgh using a Nikon Z7ii. I used a Nikon Z 14-30 lens at 17mm. I had a 4-stop soft ND Grad filter on the sky to balance the exposure and a 4-stop ND filter to lengthen it. The camera was mounted on a tripod to capture a steady image with the 0.6-second exposure at f/11.0 and ISO64.
This next shot was taken around 30 minutes later.
This is looking in the opposite direction to the castle, towards the little lighthouse on the rocks. This time, I used the Nikon Z 24-120 at 24mm, along with the same two filters as before. The camera was mounted on a tripod again for a 1-second exposure at f/11 and ISO64. Timing the waves at this point became tricky. The exposure times increased too much, so the waves were losing definition, and the light was changing rapidly.
This final shot again looks towards the castle and is taken as we enter the blue hour.
This is a 2-second exposure using the Nikon Z 24-120 lens at 40mm. By this time, I had removed the filters as the exposure between the sky and the wet beach had become quite balanced.
All in all, this was an excellent first night of the trip. I hope you like the shots and have a great weekend.
The Lightweight Photographer 