Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture: f/6.3
Focal Length: 32 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: No Flash
Shot in Manual Mode
Background
I took this picture at the a2f Blue (now known as Kairos S&E) Pacifica Beach outing on April 4, 2009. It was near the end of the trip when we had just taken a bunch of group pictures, but as a photographer, I wanted something more. Something to standout and remember the moment. I knew that Hubert could do a backflip so I think I or somebody suggested that he do a backflip and that’s how I got this shot. Of course it went through some major post-processing to make it look like it. I’d even go as far as say that this is probably my all time favorite picture so far.
Anticipating Your Shot
I shot this on high speed continuous shooting on the 40D which is over 6 frames per seconds and I just chose the best out of those. If you don’t have that ability (e.g. my 5D right now has barely over 3 fps), it takes a bit more timing to get the shot right. You have to know your camera and how much the shutter lags (which is usually not that much if you have a DSLR, within like a tenth of a second or so). That means if you press the shutter release button right when you want the shot, you’re not going to get it. LOL.
Post-Processing
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know that my first edit for this picture was different from the final product I have. In my original edit, I just brought out some of the blues and oranges in the sky but left the sand on the beach a dark black. Later on however, I decided to bring out the sand and I think it makes for a more dramatic picture (although there’s a lot of noise in the sand area because I increased the exposure so much, you can’t really tell because the sand is already grainy).
Here are the original (left) and the original edit (right).
All I did originally was to adjust brightness/exposure, add a vignette and clip the blacks until I liked how it looked. Then I increased the vibrance to bring out the colors. In the second edit (which is what you see in the first picture of this post), I brought the fill light WAY up to bring out the sand and adjusted contrast and blacks to make it look okay afterward. Here’s another edit that I did today. The only major difference is that I darkened the oranges a bit using luminance to make the orange deeper and the warmed up the picture, which I had not done originally. It kind of looks underexposed now though.
Get Low for Beach Silhouette Pictures
When Andrew Stucki and I were attempting this picture of Hubert, we were both lying on our stomachs in the sand to get as low as possible. I often see people taking jumping pictures at the beach, and everything is great except they’re just standing there with the camera in front of them. When you’re trying to get a proper silhouette, you need your subject to be behind something that’s bright. If you’re standing and taking the picture, then most of your subject is going to be in front of the water and the sand, and not the sky and that poses a huge problem later on. When they jump, they should be above the horizon ideally so keep that in mind!
For example…
In this picture, the person who took it was pretty low to the ground also, but if I remember correctly, was only kneeling and not lying down (I’m in the picture, meaning I didn’t take it). You can see that our feet are overlapping with the water, which is okay in this case because the water is pretty light (and one person’s feet are in the sand, and you can see that it kind of loses its dramatic feel.
For this one, I was again lying on the ground and they’re way above the horizon which gives a much more dramatic feel to it. You can see the difference in how low I was by seeing how much “thinner” the water is in the second picture compared to the first, since I was lower down and looking at the water from a lower angle. Some other tips in terms of posing people is to tell them to lift their legs (it’s more important that they lift their legs up or at least bend their knees than them jumping really high). Also, I find it best if the photographer counts and says “1,2,3, Jump” rather than one of the people jumping. That’s all! Direct any questions or comments or critiques to the comments box.
thanks for the tip! i’ll have that it mind when i take jumping pictures!