Raw Transcript
one of the most important factors of any photograph is the light in the scene and it’s true that the quality of light differs hugely throughout the day and even from minute to minute as various different things happen so a Sur photographers we’re nearly always outside and we’re kind of at the mercy of the Sun and how much light comes from it where that compiled that’s coming from so I’m gonna give you some quick really basic rules of thumb in order to kind of maximize the quality of your photos based on the light that’s available so early mornings late evenings generally speaking are going to be the best light for photography the sun’s low in the sky and the light coming from that angle Castorena shadows is often a very nice color like a deep red color and you’ve all seen sunsets that beautiful different shades of reds and purples and oranges that kind of light only happens when the sun’s really low in the sky if it’s midday and the sun’s straight ahead straight above rather then the light can be a bit make things a bit flat you don’t really see the shadows and you don’t see the the texture on the water and you don’t see as much interesting light going on at the kind of midday so I would suggest trying something a bit different you could always go for underwater and the best time to do and otter I find is at midday with a stronger Sun you can get because the water naturally diffuses that light and you need light in order to see under the water so that’s a great opportunity to hide some underwater shots if the Sun is really high in the sky and you you know you’re not too worried about getting those arty really nice and wave photos and if you’re someone who just wants to nail an InFocus shot someone and you can identify them then mid days fine just go for it crank your shutter speed up to make sure you’re getting a nice crisp shot and so that you can use an aperture that that’s what you can use a narrow aperture and a fast shutter speed and a low ISO that’s the advantage you can get a nice deep depth of field because you’ve got a narrow aperture and you can freeze the action because you’ve got a fast shutter speed and you don’t get hardly any noise because you’ve got a low ISO so there’s a lot going for you if you’re just looking to get technically sharp images if you’re shooting a midday and a clear blue sky but if you’re looking for something that’s really interesting that kind of inspires emotions in people then generally speaking you want to get up at dawn before dawn because you want to be there before dawn so that you can shoot at dawn and stale a bit later into the evening and you’re gonna get Germany’s being better light the direction that you shoot related to relating to the Sun it is really important you’ll really quickly pick up on the challenges of shooting into the Sun but the rewards are there as well so you can get really nice backlit waves especially a good tip for fishing in the Sun is to kind of keep it low because you can see the sun shining through the waves in that case if you’re up high it can look great still but it’s kind of harder to get the nice sky in it as well so low angles tend to be pretty good at the current dawn and sunset generally speaking though if it looks good to your eye it’s gonna look good to her to a camera and like I say we all know that sunsets are beautiful sunrises are amazing fewer people see sunrises so it’s it usually paints your surf spot in a new light because it’s just human nature you tend to be awake when in the Sun setting but quite often especially in summer in the Northern Hemisphere here and in the summer when it get when the Sun comes up at 5:00 a.m. there’s not many people around so a lot of people haven’t seen even kind of well-known breaks surf spots beaches and things at dawn and it’s something else as surfers we see tend to see quite a lot because I don’t know about you but I like going there really early and beating the crowds especially and it just gives you a different feel so you’ll capture something that even someone who’s been to that Beach as a non surfer you know every week for the last five years they might never have been that dawn they won’t have known how the Sun comes over just gets past that tree and bursts on till the waves as they break just so that gets over the cliff they’ll never have seen that so that’s something you can show them that is fresh and exciting and will make them feel impressed and evolutional about that image because there’s something they haven’t seen before and that’s kind of what you’re going for when you’re going for a an interesting surf photo and it kind of goes for any sort of photography as well but that’s why you’ll often find a photographers getting up before dawn and I like to set my stuff up the night before if I know it’s going to be a good a good light at dawn so I’ll set everything up if I’m using what housing I’ll set it up I’m using a machine panel and I’ll get my you know make sure my SD cards clear I’ll charge my batteries I’ll put my telephoto lens on I’ll get it all ready by the door and then I can get up and go be there before dawn and get that really really nice light yeah that’s again it’s pretty general tips if you’re a photographer already you’re going to known all of this stuff but if you’re a surfer or if you’re someone who wants to take more interesting surf photography then get up before dawn stay a bit later and get that really nice evening or morning light
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