Michele Borgarelli
About the Image(s)
Background: Bandon beach in Oregon is likely one of the most photographed beaches in US. It is a wonderful place and is a photographer paradise. I was there in October with a group of other photographers. Typically, this beach is photographed with a wide angle to capture the sea stacks and a long exposure to creat a smooth water. Indeed, I took few images that way, but I used my photopill app to figure out the sun was going to be in a perfect position between those two rocks and decided to go for a telephoto lens to isolate the silhouette of the sea stack and capturing the sun going down. So I used my 150-600 lens for trying something different.
Technical data: image taken with the camera handheld. Nikon Z7-ii with Sigma 150-600 mm at 150 mm, f/22, 1/500 sec, ISO 800. I used f/22 to get enough depth of field and relatively high ISO to have a shutter speed fast enough to get a sharp image. I walk around to the point I could get the composition I envisioned and then just had to wait for the sun to be in the right spot. I exposed for the highlight, considering the dynamic range of the camera I know I can always recover the shadow without introducing too much noise. I took only 4-5 images and this is the one I have chosen because the seagull add a little of interest to it.
Image was cropped to 2:3 and basic adjustment were done. I cloned out a dust spot and then I just opened the shadow and the black a little (I wanted to keep the silhouette effect), taking down highlights and white. Increased clarity, saturation and contrast by 12%.