Hobbies And Interests
Things You'll Need
Instructions
Avoid lunchtime hours when the sun is at its highest point. The light is warmest and softest during mornings and evenings, when the sun shines at an angle to the beach. Use a lens hood or your hand as a shade to block unwanted glare.
Use a UV or polarizing filter, if one can be added to your lens. These not only filter out unwanted shadows and ultraviolet light; they protect your lens from water, sand and fingerprints, as well.
Don't put the horizon in the center of the picture. Use the rule of thirds, keeping your subject and any strong lines in the right or left, or upper or lower, third of the picture. This makes your photograph visually interesting.
Move your subject so they face the sun at an angle. This prevents them from being back-lit by a bright light and from squinting by looking directly into the sun.
Use a fill flash to fight shadows across the face.
Underexpose your images to make up for the reflection coming from the water and sand. Do this by lowering the aperture, or F-stop, setting by two stops. Alternatively, use your camera's exposure compensation button, often marked with "+/-" symbol to make the exposure lighter or darker. Choose an option on the negative side of the scale.
Bracket your images. This means you should shoot the same picture several times, adjusting the shutter speed and F-stop a little bit each time until you find the exposure that works best.
Choose a higher F-stop to keep the background in sharp focus or a lower F-stop to soften the background focus. The amount of light coming through the lens aperture controls the depth-of-field of a picture.