Exploring SLR

It's been a while - Mount Maunganui, Whakatane and the Hillary Trail - New Zealand

2016-02-09T17:43:00.000+11:00

It's been a while since I posted to this blog - I guess life has been busy, with the SLR not getting dusted off as often as I would like. Anyway, I recently went away for a holiday to Mount Maunganui in New Zealand. NZ is home for me now, having moved here permanently about six months ago.

I'm hoping the amazing landscape gives me plenty of good opportunities to get back into using my SLR. Here are some shots from my trip away, including shots at Mount Maunganui and some spots near Whakatane.

Despite the above, I am still a firm believer that the best camera, is the one you have on you. In this regard, I recently went on a hike on a track winding along the New Zealand coastline, just out of Auckland, called the Hillary Trail. Not wanting to take my bulky SLR, I simply took my phone and managed to get some great shots on it's 13MP sensor.

Mount Maunganui and Whakatane

View from the top of the Mount

The trail down the Mount (this one actually taken on my phone and HDR's in Snapseed)

View over Whakatane

Some sheep on the way up the Mount

View south from the top of the Mount

View North from the top of the Mount

View from the Mount

View from a lookout above Whakatane

View of White Island (active volcano) off the coast of Whakatane

View to the coastline south of Whakatane

The Hillary Trail

The Hillary Trail - Looking North

The Hillary Trail - Looking South

The Hillary Trail - Looking North

You pass quite a few rolling grassy hills along the Hillary Trail

Hot air balloons

2015-06-23T01:17:00.001+10:00

Every year Canberra has some what of a hot air balloon festival. This year I managed to get some great photos dying a cold bike ride around the lake.

More photos from my mobile phone

2015-06-23T01:13:00.001+10:00

I am currently in New Zealand, coming to terms with and enjoying the birth of my first daughter. In a few quieter moments I've managed to get out and take a few snaps on my phone.

New Zealand - One Tree Hill - 2014

2015-02-01T22:08:00.003+11:00

Your SLR is not a superhero

2013-04-02T22:21:00.002+11:00

The other day, I stumbled across a great article on "Digital Photography School" titled "Why your camera isn't a Superhero".

The article essentially runs through the feelings that I am sure are very common, of bringing a new SLR or lens home, running to the backyard and taking some photos, and quickly seeing they look no better than what you used to take on an old point and shoot, or even your camera phone!

Below is a great extract from the article, but I suggest anyone interested reads it in full:

The point? Well sometimes we focus too much on the gear – the latest bodies, lenses, accessories, but the reality is that often it doesn’t actually improve our photographs. Our camera isn’t a superhero – it is simply a box that records light.

It is us that determines what that light looks like and ultimately that is what makes great images. So next time you find yourself in a camera shop looking at new equipment ask yourself realistically ‘how specifically will this help me to create better images?’ If you can pragmatically answer then go ahead and knock yourself out, bu t if you can’t then perhaps it’s time to practice more with what you have instead of buying something new.Learn and practice the basic principles of photography because they will serve you well no matter what equipment you have. Remember many of the great photographers shot fantastic images with cameras most of us wouldn’t even look at today. Make yourself the superhero, not the camera.

Read more: http://digital-photography-school.com/why-your-camera-isnt-a-superhero#ixzz2PIqdySg8

Reading the above got me thinking about how recently, although I have an SLR, I have been taking a lot more pictures using my phone, and have been remarkably satisfied with the results. It is not that I do not prefer using my SLR, but it is that my phone is always with me so I have it with me at opportunities when sometimes an SLR is not possible.

At the end of the day, a good camera will help, making it easier to capture fast moving object or low light scenes, but composition will always be the key to a great shot, and that can 100% be achieved by a camera phone. Chuck in handful of great apps for digital editing on the fly (my favourite being Snapseed) and you really have no reason not to be able to create great shots with or without your SLR.

A few recent example of my phone photography are below. The top photo is taken in Canberra, Australia with the remaining pics taken on a recent holiday to the USA.

Tilt Shift - Take 2

2013-02-17T23:47:00.002+11:00

Almost 2 years ago, I decided I wanted to play around with a bit of tilt shift photography. Converting my pics with the right amount of blur and saturation was a lengthy process on Photoshop which I never bothered to repeat again. My original results can be seen here.

2 years later, whilst playing on my tablet I noticed one of the photo apps I use, Snapseed, included a tilt shift filter. I quickly pulled up a few pics I had saved on my tablet, and within seconds had converted 5 photos. It honestly took all of about 5 minutes, which using the original Photoshop method I tried 2 years ago, would have taken me an hour or so.

This is of course not a suprise. I think almost every photo app these days, plus many digital cameras come built in with a tilt shift function. I guess in that regard, the 'magic' of the technique has disappeared to a degree (though, did it ever really exist?). In either case, I still enjoy the look and feel in the right instances, but know for a fact that I will not be resorting to sitting down on my PC if I need to achieve the look again in the future!

New Wide Angle Lens

2013-01-24T16:13:00.002+11:00

On Tuesday night, Simone surprised me with an early Birthday present - a new wide angle lens for my SLR. She managed to do all the research herself, which impressed me, and the result was a Canon EF 17-40mm f/4 USM lens.

I took it out for a session in Canberra immediately, from dusk to complete darkness and managed to snap (what I thought) are a few decent shots. Am looking forward to getting out over the next few weeks and snapping a few other Canberra landmarks (there are plenty of them!).

Photo Challenge 2 - Portrait

2012-09-08T18:27:00.002+10:00

The second month of a photo challenge I am doing with a friend had a theme of 'portrait'. This was not my choice, which is probably revealed by my lack of 'variety' in what I think are my best shots (all 2 of them). In true 'don't leave the house fashion' they are all of our cat.

I personally like the top one the best. What do you think? (click the pics to enlarge).

The next theme is 'movement' which I already have some good ideas for. Looking forward to trying a few new things out and about.

Photo Challenge - Tranquil

2012-07-10T00:08:00.001+10:00

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine suggested that we undertake a photo challenge, to get us out and about and searching for good shots instead of simply waiting for good moments to come to us. Essentially, we gave ourselves three weeks, picked a theme, and then agreed to meet and and compare our best shots that conformed to the theme.

Being a big fan of landscape photography (it is my comfort zone), I sneakily suggested "tranquil" as the first theme, and luckily it stuck. One of the benefits of such a theme for me is that every morning, I ride to work around Lake Burleigh Griffith (a large shallow, algae infested lake in the heart of Canberra). A cup of the water may kill you, but on cold winter mornings (down to -6 lately), it provided some great shooting options.

The best of my shots (in my opinion) is below. Amazingly, it was only taken on a cheap point and snap camera because it is all I had on me at the time. It was an amazing morning though, and the camera managed to truly capture the great colours of the sun rising. As they say, the best camera in the world, is the one you have with you when a good photographic moment arises. It really all does come down to composition!

I have included a few of my other entries into the "competition" below for you. My favorite would probably be the middle one of the sun breaking through the trees, particularly because of the dramatic shadows cast by the trees. The theme for the next challenge has been set as "Portrait". Portraiture is not my strong point, so it should prove interesting. Any tips?

Vietnam and Cambodia - take 2

2012-06-03T20:44:00.000+10:00

After coming home from a holiday in Vietnam and Cambodia earlier in the year, I very quickly went through all my shots and chose what I thought (at the time) were about 100 of the best. Since then, I haven't really looked back over the remainder of the pics, but tonight I thought I would give it a go.

Surprisingly, I found lots of shots in there that I must have overlooked the first time round, and ones that on reflection, should have made it into my "best of" folder. What follows are some of the new shots I have decided are "worthy" of being put online. To check out the full set of my shots from the trip, check out my Flickr.

News.com.au Gallery!

2012-04-24T07:17:00.002+10:00

Head to the photo gallery and check out photo number 10!

http://www.news.com.au/travel/your-best-photos-of-australia/story-e6frfq7r-1226336365370

Easter in New Zealand

2012-04-16T23:36:00.001+10:00

This Easter, I spent 6 days in New Zealand with Simone's family. New Zealand always offers me some great chances to get out and about with my camera, and although we were extremely busy, I still managed to come away with a few shots I was happy with.

In particular, I spent a lot of time photographing Simone's families German Shephard. As she was constantly on the move, I was forced to use some pretty high shutter speeds to get the results I wanted!

Street Photography in Melbourne

2012-04-16T23:29:00.001+10:00

For my birthday, I was lucky enough to be given a surprise weekend trip to Melbourne, as well as a street photography course. The course was with a guy named Martin Bonnici who runs a company called Photography Made Easy. It was a 4 hr course with just Martin and myself, where we roamed the streets of Melbourne and talked photography. On top of getting some good shots (see below), the larger focus of the course was to get me shooting manual 100% of the time.

After the course, I can say I am now entirely comfortable with Manual mode on my SLR and wouldn't hesitate to use it in any conditions. I also managed to pick up some good advice about composition, exposures, and use of the flash on my SLR. All in all, it was a great experience, and is something worth considering if you are keen on taking some pics on Melbourne and being taken to some great locations.

HDR at Potato Point

2012-03-05T22:30:00.001+11:00

A couple of weekends ago, Simone and I headed to Potato Point (on the NSW coast, near Tuross) for a weekend away with another couple. This gave me a great opportunity to get some great shots of the beach. I took the opportunity to experiment with High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography for the first time.

For those who haven't noticed, HDR is all the range these days, with everything from simple point and click camera's to mobile phones often having an automated HDR capability built in. Despite this, I still think there is something to be said for doing it the "old fashioned" way. Let me explain.

HDR essentially means capturing a greater range of light than would typically be possible with a single shot. The effects are usually vibrant and striking, and can often have a quite surrealist feel.

To create this effect, 2 or more photos are taken (usually three) at different exposure levels. On an SLR, you need to use a function called "exposure bracketing" and the camera will automatically take all three pictures for you in quick succession. A tripod or study rock are essential, as is a remote or using the 2second timer to take the pictures (to avoid shakes).

I tend to space my three photos using pretty standard exposure settings. The first shot is -2, the second is 0 and the third is +2. With this range of shots, you are almost guaranteed to get some good HDR results. This aside, framing a good photo is still essential, which I think is often forgotten with HDR, especially as the capability becomes more commonplace. The colours are usually so vivid and bold that it may be easy to forget to compose a good shot. Hopefully I managed!

To actually merge my 3 pics together, I used software called Photomatix. This video isn't by me, but should give you a good idea:

Essentially, I simply loaded up my pics, kept pressing next, then eventually cycled through the pre-set examples until I found a result I liked. A detailed written tutorial is available here. I have also tried Photoshop for HDR, but the pre-set capabilities of Photomatix make it a far better choice!

So the results? See below. Some of the colours may have gone a little too far, but overall I am happy with the result. I realise they may have a somewhat "fake" look about them, but for my first try I am quite satisfied!

One image out of many...

2012-01-19T20:09:00.002+11:00

On Monday, Simone and I returned from 3 weeks in Vietnam and Cambodia. It was an amazing holiday, as every city we visited could have easily been in a different country. Temperatures ranged from close to 40 to below zero, the climate ranged from tropical mountains to flooded plains, and the weather varied from bright sunny days to weeks of rain and cloud.

All in all, it was not only a great chance to see an amazing part of the world, but I was fortunate enough to be able to take my SLR along for the journey and catch some amazing shots. You can check out a selection of my shots (I decided to choose just over 100 from the 1600 I took) on my Google+ profile here. I have also uploaded a smaller selection onto my Flickr account (see above).

I will surely write a few blogs about some specific shots I took over the coming weeks, but in the meantime, I decided to experiment with creating a single image, utilising the 1000+ images I took. Everyone has seen this done before, especially in advertising circles, but I thought I would give it a go, with the Vietnamese flag featuring as the prominent over-arching image.

Confused as to what I'm talking about? Well check out the result:
(click the image to open it for a better view)

Overall, I was impressed with how the image turned out and how quick and easy it was to achieve such effective results. If you want to give it a shot yourself, simply follow this tutorial. I used the PC software, so would be interested to know how the Mac equivalents work, or what others experiences are like. I for one, will be trying this again!

Eclipse - My fav shot

2011-12-12T20:48:00.000+11:00

After a bit of playing about and cropping of shots from the eclipse, I have decided that this is my favourite:

Lunar Eclipse

2011-12-11T15:15:00.001+11:00

On Friday and Saturday night, Simone and I went to a place on the NSW coast called Mollymook and stayed in a great apartment right on the beach. On Saturday morning, whilst watching the news I found out that there was going to be a lunar eclipse that night (Saturday 10/12/11) from between 12ish and 3ish in the morning.

I had never seen an eclipse before, and luckily I had my SLR with me on the trip, along with my standard zoom lens. Unfortunately I didn't have a tripod with me, so at midnight I found myself lying on the cold ground of our apartment balcony, with my camera sitting against an empty cake box that I molded to have my lens pointing in just the right direction.

It took quite a bit of trial and error to get the settings right, but I settled (with a few minor variants) on:

Manual Mode
ISO 100
f 16
1/25 right up to 1 - 2 second exposure

As the moon got smaller, I had to increase the exposure time to compensate for the lack of light. I messed about with increasing my ISO but unfortunately jumped to the extremes (3400, 6400!) instead of playing around with more reasonable numbers (such as 200, 400, etc) - and the results were far too noisy. The higher ISO's did however show up the red glow far more effectively than the shots with the lower ISO's.

Overall, I am happy with how the shots turned out. I also messed about on the computer and merged a few into a single shot so that the transition is really noticeable. So here are the results:

A few recent shots...

2011-10-11T23:53:00.003+11:00

Well, I have been a bit quiet on here lately. In all honesty, it has been because I have been spending a lot of time on another project, being Droid App of the Day. Regardless, I've still being taking plenty of pics over the last few months, and even though I can't say I have tried anything too "new" or "adventurous" there are still a few shots that I am happy with! (click on the pics to make larger)

Taken at "Floriade" in Canberra

Taken at Cottosloe Beach in Perth

Taken in Auckland New Zealand

Taken in the ACT, Australia

Timelapse Photography - a spinning sky

2011-09-01T21:05:00.000+10:00

Whilst catching up on my daily news yesterday, I stumbled across the following article on news.com.au:

Photographer Lincoln Harrison puts a new spin on shooting stars

For some reason is stood out at me because (a) someone taking some pretty decent time lapse photos of stars didn't feel worthy of being "national news*", but more so (b) it got me thinking why I hadn't tried to replicate such photos before myself.

After a quick google about, one of the first links I stumbled upon was this explanation, on a blog called

Happy Snapper.

This explanation (the first option described in the above blog) will likely be the process I will follow, and seems to be broken into four simple steps:

Put camera on a tripod, into Manual, put it on a large aperture (f4) and put the shutter onto bulb (admittedly this is a couple of steps in one, but oh well);
Put the camera on a high ISO, 400 - 800. I'll probably try 400 to start with;
Put on Manual Focus, and set it to infinity (8) - (double check though that any items in the foreground are also in focus before starting); and finally
Using a remote shutter cable, take a photo from anywhere between 5 and 30 mins (allegedly 30 mins gives quite a "crowd pleasing" result.

It seems to be a relatively straight forward process, which I will be sure to try next time I am camping or in a quiet place away from light "pollution".

So, has anyone else given this a try? Any tips?

On a somewhat related topic, I also stumbled across a Norwegian photographer called Terje Sorgjerd who is also in the business of taking amazing shots of quite different forms of light (stars, lightning from volcano's, the northern lights, etc)

If you have 5 minutes, I strongly suggest you watch the following videos he has created using a time lapse capture method. Amazing stuff:

*by national news, I mean "international news"... this exact story seems to have been repeated in every second online news site across Australia and the UK. If anything, it really shows we need a few more news corporations, who employ a few more real journalists! See below links for a small example!

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/a-new-spin-on-shooting-stars/story-fn7x8me2-1226126751556

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/travel/australia/a-new-spin-on-shooting-stars/story-fn3025r5-1226126850441

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/travel/australia/gallery-e6frezii-1226126854734?page=1

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2031704/Australian-photographer-Lincoln-Harrison-endures-15-hour-photo-shoots-capture-stunning-night-images-star-trails.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/picturesoftheday/8730716/Pictures-of-the-day-30-August-2011.html?image=14

Under-exposed Long Exposures at the Beach

2011-08-28T22:29:00.003+10:00

This weekend, Simone and I headed away for a weekend on the South Coast at a little place called Potato Point. It ended up being a great opportunity to try out a few new things on my camera. In particualar, I was interested in trying to capture waves crashing over rocks using a long exposure. For some reason, I always appreciate these types of shots when I see other people create them, so I thought I would try for myself (see here for an example of what I was aiming for: http://news.deviantart.com/article/121175/)

It was an overcast afternoon, which gave me a chance to snap a few shots a bit earlier than would have been possible had the sun been shining brightly. Despite this, I still underexposed my first couple of shots to make up for the fact that there was still a bit of sun about. The greyness of the afternoon didn't however create the most exciting or contrasting backgrounds.

Anyway, using my tripod, precariously perched on jagged rocks, I tried about 4 or 5 different locations over the course of an hour, and managed to come away with a few shots that I was happy with.

f22, 4 secs, ISO100, -4 exp, B&W post processing

f20, 3.2secs, ISO100

f8, 1sec, ISO100

Check out my flickr Stream for some other shots of the trip, was really happy with what I came away with.

On a side note, I have started playing about with adding borders to some of my pictures. For certain shots I feel it adds to the impact. I use a free program called "Frame Fun" (available here: http://framefun.en.softonic.com/) which is quite easy to use and can batch process large groups of pics. The borders are a bit of an overkill for the small shots on here (as Blogger automatically adds a plain white background), but they seem to look good if you enlarge individual images.

Tilt Shift Photography - Miniaturising Life

2011-05-22T22:20:00.000+10:00

For something a bit different...

Simone came home the other day after going to a euro vision "party" and told me that they used some cool effects for the intro's and outro's of the show. Curiosity got the better of me so after a bit of googling I found out they were displaying video that used an effect known as "tilt shift". So what is "tilt shift"?

Essentially, it is a form of photography (or video as it turns out) in which the focus has been altered (usually digitally) to give a perception of the scene being miniaturised. In effect, it makes ordinary cityscapes look like photos taken of Cockington Green.

A good example (of the video format of this effect) is the following clip I found of the Coachella Music Festival in the United States:

In terms of photography, a simple Google image search will reveal endless examples, but I was keen to give it a try myself. Unfortunately, I had not taken any pictures for this particular purpose, so I feel my shots are a bit too far "back" from the action to be as impressive as they could. Generally, I think this effect would work best if there can be people or vehicles in the scene to add a greater sense of perspective.

In order to make the pics, I followed this guide: http://www.tiltshiftphotography.net/photoshop-tutorial.php

It was quite easy and worked perfectly - my first time ever playing with Photoshop as well, and it has got me interested in playing around more with post-processing. I have came to realise though, that because I am colour blind, I really do have to take a stab in the dark as to whether the changes I have made are any good (colour wise)!

Anyway, here are the results, both are pics I dug up from our trips to New Zealand in the beginning of the year:

Camping - Gordon Country and Namadgi

2011-05-18T21:34:00.001+10:00

Over the Easter break I flew up to Brissi and went camping with my brother and a few mates. The place we went to is known as Gordon Country, and is traditional bush camping next to a creek. Then, a couple of weeks later my brother and a few friends went camping in Namadgi National Park in the ACT. Again, this was typical bush camping.

Both trips gave me a good chance to take a few pics, and to get out the tripod or High ISOs for some low light shots around the campfire.

f5.6, 1/100, ISO640

(As the sun was going down over the river, I thought I should at least try to catch a good shot. I think I may have been a little too early, as I couldn't quite seem to get the pic I wanted. I did a bit of playing around with the contrast and colours on this one on the PC, and got this to a point where it is OK)

f4.5, 30 sec, ISO100

(I quite like this one, a long 30 second exposure at a low ISO with a tripod. The big log moved a bit because the boys on the other side were kicking the fire to throw up the sparks. Still, I think even with the "not completely in focus" log, it's a good effect)

F6.3, 1/250, ISO100

(I think these prickly bushes look pretty cool, so tried to get a focused shot of one with the kangaroos in the background. It worked, but the shot was taken at pretty much the worst time of the day (midday))

f3.5, 1/30, ISO2500

(This is was one of the first time's I had taken my camera up to some of the higher ISO settings. I didn't have the tripod with me at this stage, so had to rely on hand-held, but i think the lighting and the great big fire came out really well)

f4.5, 1/60, ISO 400

(After putting a log on the fire, we looked at one end and noticed a swarm of ants pouring out! This is a bit of a basic "snap")

f5, 1/60, ISO400

(just a possum)

Fireworks - Skyfire 2011

2011-03-26T11:37:00.002+11:00

Last weekend was Skyfire - a firework show which is held over Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra on a yearly basis. I originally wasn't planning on going along, and the on/off again rain of the night didn't do much to help. I did however, receive a tripod for my Birthday recently, so at the last minute I decided it would be a perfect opportunity to test out taking some photos of fireworks.

I did my research beforehand...

http://www.photojournalist-tgh.tv/photojournalism/fireworks-photography-tips

http://www.digital-photography-school.com/how-to-photograph-fireworks

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/digitalcameras/tips-for-photographing-fireworks/974

... and determined the general consensus on taking good firework pictures seemed to be low ISO, long exposure, manual focus and a mid range aperture.

As I do not have a shutter release cable, I had to set the self timer to 2 seconds, then press the button before I expected the fireworks to be visible. As a result, using shorter exposures (such as 1 second) didn't seem to capture the moment as I intended as the timing was too difficult. For a solution, I opted for longer exposures (ranging from 4 - 30 seconds) making it impossible to miss the action.

On side note, after coming home I decided (a) I did want a remote shutter release, but (b) I wanted one cheaply, so I jumped on eBay and have ordered myself the following Infared Remote Shutter Release. For $5.49 it will be interesting to see how it goes!

Some of the results...

f/11, 3.2s, ISO 100

f/11, 13s, ISO 320

f/11, 5s, ISO 125

Landscapes

2011-03-10T23:27:00.001+11:00

Over the last couple of weeks I've decided I like landscape pics - both looking and taking. I think it is because I enjoy doing almost anything outdoors - and taking landscapes involves getting out and about - a perfect combination of my interests!

Considering this, I've taken my camera with me a couple of mornings on my ride to work. Once winter kicks in with a bit more force the lake will have a low fog and the sun will be rising far later so I think there should be a few chances to get a good shot or two.

For the time being however, this is a sample of what I've managed.

f11, 1/125s, ISO 100

f7.1, 1/50s, ISO 100

Shutter Speed - New Zealand and Fiji

2011-02-08T19:28:00.002+11:00

It's been a while since my last post - I've been busy getting married, going on a honeymoon, attending another wedding, starting a new years of work and now moving house - but anyway...

I decided to write this post on shutter speed because it is something which I have been particularly enjoying playing with on my camera over the previous weeks. Essentially, the shutter speed is controlling the amount of light which enters the camera, but particularly, for what period of time light is allowed to enter the lens and "hit the film" (or the digital sensor). I found this to be a good summary with some good pics: http://mansurovs.com/what-is-shutter-speed-in-photography

At the moment I have only played around with slow shutter speeds, or long exposures.

One of the essential things I've realised I need (but don't have) is a tripod. This ensures that you capture the movement of things that are moving, but do not "shake" the things that are not moving. I don't have a tripod, so have had to rely on rocks and chairs and garbage bins, however a tripod really would have made getting good compositions easier as you are not restricted to relying on where local councils have places benches!

So, a few tips that I've picked up:

If possible, keep the ISO as low as possible to reduce noise. This might not be possible in low light conditions though.
Use the 2 second timer (or a remote) to take the pics so that you do not shake the lens as you press the button down.
Allegedly turning the image stabilizer off assists in reducing image blur (a paradox I know, but it's recommended none the less by many people)
Try lots of different exposure times / ISO combinations to find the perfect mix.

Here, a tripod would have been nice as the lights in the background would not have been blurred. Instead, this was handheld, however with quite a short exposure time.

This was taken sitting my camera precariously on a rock over looking the pond. As it was during the day I used a low ISO (200 if I remember) but only exposed for 3 seconds.

The above picture was taken when it was quite dark, probably about 9.30 at night. I had to use a high ISO and a long exposure time of 30 seconds, hence the noise - It did however help some of the stars make an appearance in the background.

Again, water always seems to look good on long exposures. This was a low ISO (I think 100) but a long exposure (about 30 secs).

This picture was taken far earlier than the same little "hut" above, hence the reduced noise (I managed to use ISO 100) and a slightly shorter exposure time (about 10 secs). Unfortunately the tide was not as far in.