Safety Harbor Marina

Monday nights at the Marina, my photography club has their weekly meetup. While some of us shoot photos, most of us don't; we just sit around trading tips and techniques.

This Monday night, I saw these amazing clouds and liked the way they formed a semi-circle with the reflections in the water. I knew this called for a wide-angle lens. I love the way this came out. Usually, I have to tweak stuff a little bit in Lightroom and/or Photoshop. I didn't touch this one, other than resizing.

Funny thing, I like it and it's not really my style at all. I hardly ever use a wide angle unless I have to. I'm beginning to think it's time to explore what I can do with this lens.

Settings used for this image were 1/250th at F10 using 200 ISO and +1/3 exposure compensation with partial metering off the water to be sure I'd capture the reflections of the clouds at 18mm with my 18-55mm lens. The shot was made at 5:15 pm.

Safety Harbor Shoreline

This beautiful scene was shot the same morning as I shot the pier at sunrise. This little part of the shoreline is to the left of the pier. I've seen this many times, but during the day it looks kind of bland. It just goes to show you how the various qualities of light can affect a scene.

When you've found a beautiful landscape, you should always photograph it at different times of day. You'll never know what beauty you can find otherwise.

Settings for this scene were as follows: It was shot at 6:50 am, just 20 minutes before sunrise at ISO 200 for 13 seconds at F16. I chose ISO 200 so I'd get less digital noise (grain) and F16 for two reasons; I wanted to be sure everything was in focus from near to far and I wanted a slow shutter speed to blur the water and make it smooth. I used Aperture Priority mode so I could set the aperture, with 0 exposure compensation and partial metering on the grass (which is as close to 18% gray as I could get. Since the light was changing very fast, I set my White Balance to Auto; not that it makes a whole lot of difference when shooting RAW. The focal length was 18mm with my 18-55mm lens.