10 Beach Photography Tips

Image by TollerScreamHere in Australia we love to hit the beach.

We’re one big island and most of our population is scattered along the coast line so the beach is a natural place for us to go both on day trips and longer holidays.

Beaches present digital camera owners with a number of wonderful opportunities as they are places of natural beauty, color and interesting light. However they also present a variety of challenges including camera damage, privacy issues and making large open spaces interesting.

While it’s not really beach going weather at present here in my part of the world I know that many readers of this site are getting close to Summer and beach photography will be high on the agenda of many (I’m so jealous).

Here are 10 tips for when you head to the beach with your digital camera next:


Image by Sara Heinrichs
1. Look for focal points

A friend of mine once told me that they don’t bother taking their camera to the beach because all beach shots look the same. i thought that that was a pretty sad thing to say because when I go to the beach I see it as a place brimming with photographic opportunities if you have the ability to look beyond the cliche shots. For example while many people take shots looking out to sea I find it interesting to go to the water’s edge and then turn completely around and see what’s in your frame from that angle. One common problem with landscape beach photographs is that while they might capture a beautiful scene they actually have no point of interest and can as a result be rather empty and boring. When taking a shot look for a point of interest or focal point that will give those looking at your photo a place for their eye to rest. Perhaps it’s a pattern in the sand, a set of footprints, the crashing of waves over a rock, a life saver’s tower etc. Also look for the little things that tell the story of going to the beach like shoes at the waters edge, sand castles, sunglasses, sunscreen lotion etc. Sometimes these can make wonderful little feature shots to break up your vacation album.

2. Timing is important

The start and end of days can present the best opportunities for shooting at the beach. For starters there will be less people there at that time of day but also you’ll find that with the sun shining on an angle that you often get more interesting effects of shadows and colors - particularly in the evening when the light becomes quite warm and golden.


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Image by astrocruzan
3. Watch the Horizon

One of the most common problems in beach photography where there are wide open spaces with a long and often unbroken horizon is sloping horizons. Work hard at keeping your horizon square to the framing of your shot (more on this here). Also consider placing your horizon off centre as centered horizons can leave a photo looking chopped in half (more on this in our post on the Rule of Thirds).

4. Head to the Beach When Others Avoid it

Another timing issue is that the beach can really come to life on those days that everyone avoids it because of inclement weather. Stormy seas, threatening and dramatic clouds and wind slowing lifesaver flags and trees over call all make for atmospheric shots.

5. Exposure Bracketing

One of the challenges of shooting in the middle of summer on a beach is that it can be incredibly bright and your camera could want to under expose your shots if you’re shooting in Auto mode. If your camera has a manual mode it can be well worth playing with it at the beach and experimenting with different levels of exposure. I find that I get the best results when I look at what the camera wants to expose the shot at and then over expose it by a stop or two. Of course this depends greatly from situation to situation - brightly lit landscapes are generally very tricky - especially if you have shady areas as well as bright ones. Sometimes it’s a matter of working out which area you want to be well exposed and focussing on that area as to get everything right is often impossible.


Image by phitar
6. Spot Metering

If your camera has spot metering you can overcome some of the above exposure problems. Spot metering is a feature that some cameras have whereby you tell the camera which part of the image you want to be well exposed and it will get that bit right. This is particularly useful in bright light when you want to get a shady area exposed well. It will optimize the shady area (and the other areas will be over exposed - but at least your main subject will be ok). This can be effective especially when photographing people as it allows you to face them away from the sun and to meter on their shadowy face and therefore avoid squinting (a common problem with photographing people at the beach).

7. Fill Flash

If you’re photographing people at the beach as a portrait and it’s bright you’ll find that they will almost always have shadows on their face (often cast by hats, glasses, noses etc). Switch on your flash and force it to fire when shooting in these situations and you’ll find the shadows eliminated and your actual subject is well exposed. This is particularly important when shooting into the sun when without a flash you could end up with your subject being at some stage of becoming a silhouette). If your camera gives you some level of control over how strong a flash to fire you might want to experiment with this also as firing a full strength can leave your subjects looking washed out and artificial. If your subjects do look overexposed and you cant decrease the flash strength try moving back a little from your subject and using your zoom to get a tighter framing as this will decrease the impact of the flash. As usual - experimenting is the key.

8. UV Filters

UV filters are useful for DSLR owners a couple of reasons in beach photography. Firstly they act as a protection for your lens (see below) but also they do filter out ultraviolet light in a certain range. This can cut back on atmospheric haze (often a blueish haze/tinge). The visual impact that they have is not great but they are the first thing I buy when I get a new lens for my DSLR.


Image by Sara Heinrichs
9. Polarizing Filters

One of the most useful DSLR lens accessories that you can add to a digital camera is a polarizing filter. Without getting too technical, a polarizer filters out some light that is polarized. This means that it reduces reflections and boosts contrasts. The most noticeable places that this has impact is with blue skies (potentially it can make them incredibly rich and almost dark blue) and in water/ocean in which it can give a variety of effects. The way many people explain the results of a polarizer is the difference that polarizing sunglasses can make when you put them on (in fact I know quite a few photographers who shoot through their sunglasses if they don’t have a polarizer with them. Get a polarizing filter and experiment with it and you’ll quite literally be amazed by the results.

10. Black and White

One technique that I’ve been using a lot lately in beach photography (and other genres also) is to do a little post photo production and see what impact stripping a photo of color has upon it. There’s something about a black and white shot at the beach that completely changes the mood and feel of a shot. It’s also a great way to bring to life beach shots taken on dull or overcast days which can often leave a beach scene looking a little colorless.

Beach Photography and Digital Camera Maintenance


In our post with tips on taking digital images at the beach I mentioned that taking photographs at the beach is not only a place of wonderful opportunity but one of challenges.

One of the major challenges of a place that has lots of sand, salt and often wind is keeping your digital camera protected from the elements.

Following are a few tips on how to care for your digital camera in the extreme conditions that a beach can throw at it.

Protective Filters - If you’re using a DSLR use a UV filter - in addition to the optical benefits it might offer a UV filter (or any other type in actual fact) offers another layer of protection to your lens both in terms of sand, grit and salt but also if it’s bumped or scratched. I’d much rather scratch a $50 filter than a $1000 lens!

Protect your Digital Camera’s Insides - Changing Lenses, batteries or memory cards should be done with incredible care. Try to keep the times that you open your camera up in any of these ways to a minimum while on the beach and if you have to do so make sure you’re well away from the water and if possible away from others in a sheltered place where sand will not find it’s way into the innards of your camera.

Clean Your Hands - After swimming try to rinse your hands in fresh water - salt from the ocean isn’t a good thing to introduce your camera to.

Clean Your Camera - After you day at the beach carefully clean your camera. At a minimum give it a good wipe down with a soft cloth (I use a micro fiber one which means I don’t need any cleaning fluid) to wipe any residue from the day and to get rid of any salt, sand, dust etc. It is probably worth investing in a camera cleaning kit for this purpose to utilize the different tools they give you (soft brushes, compressed air etc). Be very very careful in cleaning your cameras to use quality cleaning products because you can end up making them worse by spreading dirt around - especially when you do any cleaning on the inside. Be especially wary of anything that blows air - while this can get dirt out it can also blow it in!


Camera Bag - Obviously one of the main things to think about is how you’ll cary and store your camera when it’s not in use. On the one hand you want it to be secure and leaving it in a car might not be a wise move (partly for the security but also for the high temperatures in cars on hot days) but on the other hand you don’t want you camera sitting out on a beach all day, even in a bag, as sand tends to get into everything. Ideally a camera bag that allows you to seal your camera in will be ideal. Zip lock bags can also be useful for storing some of your gear (batteries, memory cards, filters etc). My motto for packing a camera bag when heading for the beach is to ‘pack light pack right’. Choosing to take a few useful items and leaving the rest at home can really save you problems later on.

Battling Condensation - My last trip to the tropical northern parts of Australia where it was incredibly humid presented me with the problem of condensation. The majority of the time my camera was in the air-conditioned, cool and dry confines of our hotel room (where it was inside it’s bag - even cooler) but this meant that when I took it outside to shoot that the lens and view finder immediately fogged up. It’s very difficult to combat this - although I found that the best strategy was simply to let the camera acclimatize before shooting. Some people suggest putting it in a sealed plastic bag when moving between temperatures - this might work well but is not particularly practical in many situations, especially when you have a large camera. Ideally you want to warm your camera up naturally and slowly - taking it out of it’s bag and allowing it to naturally warm up tended to fix the issue most times while I was away. I also travelled with a soft cloth which I used once the condensation had mainly gone to clean any marks it had left and to remove any last moisture that remained. One strategy that I have seen friends use is to use when visiting humid places where their camera can be exposed to condensation is to use little silica gel packs in their camera bags. These little packs absorb any moisture in your camera bag.

Set aside time for Photography and Fun - One last tip that I often do these days when I’m on holiday, especially to places like the beach where there is always the worry of camera damage. Often in these situations I take special visits to the beach just for taking photos and keep the ‘fun trips’ with family separate (and quite often leave my main camera at home). This way I have defined periods for photography where I can keep track of my gear and make sure it’s ok and then can truly relax when I head to the beach for fun. Of course when I go to the beach for fun I take my point and shoot with me for those fun shots - but I leave my more expensive gear at home where I know it won’t be damaged. I find this also means less frustration for those around me who can get sick of me always off taking photos when they want to relax with me.

Pulled from Digg

1. Don't get caught taking pics of boobs

2. Don't drop your camera into the water/sand when excited by boobs

3. Don't try to have a wank and take a pic of boobs at the same time, unless you have an anti jitter camera.

4. Pretend to be taking pictures of the waves or seaweed when taking pics of boobs.

5. Share all decent pics of decent boobs with PWRX community

6. Send the very best ones to EVL WRX via PM in HIGH RES

7 - 10. Read Tip number 1 again.

hhahhahahahahahahahahahahah

8. Make sure you have a big lens so you can take pictures of boobs a long way away.

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[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Should have bought an STI

Hey Guys

I'm new and bit more into photography than wrx...but couldn't help to start my posting by recommending a canon IS lens to solve the problem number 3

what one like this?