← Shooting Guides
Timing — season and hour
- Tides are the first decision. Low tide exposes rock formations, pools and sand patterns; high tide gives powerful wave action. Check the tide table for the day before choosing the spot.
- Autumn and winter give dramatic skies, stormy seas and fewer people. Spring brings clear skies, fresh foreground growth and strong spring tides. Summer gives long days, calm seas and crowds.
- Golden hour — warm, diffuse light, long reflections on wet sand. Blue hour — even, cool, moody light, and the ideal window for long exposures on water and cloud.
- Watch for the specials: sea storms, bioluminescence, migrating birds.
Reading the location
- Decide the type of seascape you want — open ocean, rock platform, headland, urban waterfront — before you go.
- Check the orientation: does the scene work in landscape or portrait format, and where will the sun or Milky Way actually be?
- Choose somewhere with room to move. Composition on the coast is made with your feet.
- Put an interesting subject in the frame — a rock, a jetty, a lighthouse, a stack — and let the water be the medium, not the subject.
- Revisit the same location. Coastal light and tide never repeat; the first visit is reconnaissance.
Tide, composition and safety important
- Wet rock is treacherous. Wear boots with non-slip soles.
- Scout in daylight before shooting in the dark, and know the tide times for the shoot — the difference between low and high can be dramatic.
- Never turn your back on the sea. Tides drive wave intensity as well as water level.
- The rocks you planned to shoot may be underwater at the hour you arrive — that alone can end a session.
- The receding tide is the gift: a thin film of water on sand mirrors golden-hour sky.
Protecting the gear
- Check the tripod is water-resistant — it will be standing in salt water.
- Carry several microfibre cloths. Filters attract spray, and one drop ruins a long exposure.
- Rinse everything, tripod especially, in fresh warm water when you get home. Salt destroys slowly.
Filters
- Circular polariser — cuts glare on wet rock and water, deepens sky. Costs about two stops.
- ND — the long-exposure workhorse. A reference frame from the guides: 14mm, f/14, ISO 50, 1/5 s for the water blended with 360 s for the sky, ND 3.0 (10 stops).
- Graduated ND — hard edge for the flat sea horizon, soft edge where a headland breaks it.
- Glass over resin where you can — cheap ND casts a colour shift that's tedious to correct.
Shutter speed by intent
| Look | Roughly |
|---|
| Frozen spray, defined wave crest | 1/500 s or faster |
| Streaming water pulling off rock | 1/2 s–2 s |
| Soft, textured sea | 4 s–15 s |
| Flat, misted water and drawn-out cloud | 30 s+ |
Consolidated from references: PhotoPills, Seascape Photography: The Definitive Guide.