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Last week I shared that when I was down in Destin, Florida I walked down the beach saw a small flock of Sanderlings with interesting wave action behind them. I took the shot below but was disappointed that it didn’t turn out better. So I asked how could I have taken a better shot?
All of the responses suggested that I needed to get lower – either sit down on the beach or lay down. This would have angled the lens more at the birds (and less on the beach) and still would have shown the wave action behind. Other suggestions included:
- Focus in on a smaller group of the birds to give more detail.
- Taking shots at different Apertures. A wide open aperture (small number like f/stop 4.5) will have a narrow depth of field so if the focus was on the Sanderlings the waves and the footprints in the sand could have been out-of-focus. Conversely, a small aperture (large number like f/stop 11) would have had a wider depth of field, perhaps getting both the birds and waves in focus.
- Taking shots at different shutter speeds. A fast shutter speed (1/400th of a second or faster) would tend to freeze the wave action whereas a slow shutter speed (1/125th of a second or slower) would blur the motion of the waves.
All these are great suggestions so thanks to all who sent them in. Next time I will sit or lay on the sand and take a variety of shots with different settings.
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