Second Beach & Ruby Beach

coscorrosa

Warning: long story ahead. Skip over it to reach the photos with a bonus at the end. At least this time I didn't misspell Pacific in the title of the thread, so I have that going for me.

Friday night (well, Saturday morning) at 1AM I was wondering: Where the hell is my battery charger? I was planning to shoot at sunrise (somewhere TBD) in the morning and didn't think I had enough juice left to last.

After 20 minutes of frantically searching everywhere, I finally found the stupid thing and plugged it in. Then, out of habit, I checked the forecast of a few local places. It turned out that I had probably a 50% of getting a really cool sunrise at Second Beach (where I spent the previous weekend) and a 25% chance of getting a decent sunset (which would be at low tide so I could fall back to tide pools and starfish if nothing else).

So, without thinking a great deal, and since my anger and frustration at (temporarily) losing my battery charger had woken me up rather effectively, I decided to drive out right then.

I arrived at Second Beach at 6:30 AM, and was the only one at the beach for the next few hours. The sunset didn't really materialize like I hoped it would (well, it did, but only in the direction opposite the beach which didn't help me much). I then drove south to Ruby Beach, walked up and down in several times, dragged a 50 lb. 8 foot piece of drift wood across the beach in a failed (though admirable) attempt to build a bridge across a small but powerful creek so I could cross it, and finally dozed for 90 minutes before shooting some tidepools and waiting for the sun to set.

The sunset didn't really materialize either. But the sky was a nice blue/purple and it wasn't raining (then), so that's OK. I was also the only one on the beach by the time I got back to my car.

I then drove 4.5 hours back home in the rain and set my alarm for 4:30 AM as I was meeting a friend for some eagle/landscape shooting in Skagit Valley (incidentally, most of the migrating eagles had left so I didn't get much). I had about 6 hours of sleep total over 60 hours.

Fun!

Anyway, even though the sunrise and sunset weren't what I was hoping for, I was still able to get a few shots that I liked, and here they are. 1-4 are Ruby Beach at sunset/low-tide, and the rest are at Second Beach (sunrise high-tide).

#1 (f/14 30s ISO 160 16mm)



#2 (f/14 1/8s ISO 160 16mm)



#3 (f/22 10s ISO 50 16mm - I wanted to increase the exposure time to show the swirl)



#4 (f/16 10s ISO 100 25mm)



#5 (f/16 1/4s ISO 125 28mm)



#6 (f/14 1/4s ISO 125 26mm)



#7 (f/14 1.3s ISO 125 35mm)



#8 (f/7.1 15s ISO 200 28mm)



And finally, my only companion at Second Beach. He was watching my hand-held GND filter technique and decided to try the same thing with a stick...

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clemensphoto's

Great photo series

mrlassiter

Companion with stick= HILARIOUS!

Beuatiful series... looks very cool though...

annnna8888

Now you're rubbing it in! :heh

All beautiful, but my favorites are #1, 3 and 5. #3 makes me dizzy! Even if sunrises and sunsets didn't materialize the way you wanted, the photos turned out great. And it's a good thing one little battery charger mishap didn't put you off.

Ana

hawkeye978

Ron,

Nice series. I particularly like the motion in #3 and colors in #5.

eoren1

Ron-
These are awesome!
Would you mind sharing some exif data? Especially focal length and aperture? These feel like they were taken at about 10mm on a crop or 16mm on a FF. Guessing f/8 or 11 to keep the foreground object and distance in great focus. Am I close
Thanks!
E

Dwayne Oakes

Wow ! Another great set Ron ! Man you must have a tough time
culling your work with so many keepers. lol If you had to cull this set
and only keep the very best one, which one would pick ? For me photo 1
is close but is a tad dark and not much happening with light at that time.
I like photo 5 the best for light, motion and comp.

Take care,

Dwayne Oakes

Abiciriderback

Hey Ron.

Another nice series. Funny something keeps drawing us back. I made a sudden business trip over here yesterday (Monday) unfortunately the sunset didn't happen with the approaching storm. As I reply sitting in my hotel room in Forks we have about 4" of snow on the ground hope it stays on the beach for the next few hours

Ray Still

kdog

Let me get this straight. You got up at 1:00 AM, and drove some 5 hours or more to take pictures? You're wacked. :crazy No wonder nobody else manages to get the shots you do.

Super shots, all of them. But those first three shots blow my mind and it's hard to focus on the rest after seeing them. Truly awesome work.

I love the way you've been embedding video clips into your posts lately. They're truly like a live window into the scene.

Cheers,
-joel

bryanj87

Those first three shots are just incredible. thumb

Funny you mention trying to build a bridge across that creek at Ruby Beach. When I was out there, I watched a group of drunken fishermen try to do the same thing. They failed, but provided the dozen or so people there with a good laugh.

coscorrosa

mrlassiter wrote:

Companion with stick= HILARIOUS!

Beuatiful series... looks very cool though...

Wasn't too cold (40 degrees at least), warm enough that I could take a 90 minute nap on the beach around 2PM

As for the stick dropper, thanks, I thought it was pretty funny, definitely something you need to see on video to appreciate.

coscorrosa

annnna8888 wrote:

Now you're rubbing it in! :heh

All beautiful, but my favorites are #1, 3 and 5. #3 makes me dizzy! Even if sunrises and sunsets didn't materialize the way you wanted, the photos turned out great. And it's a good thing one little battery charger mishap didn't put you off.

Ana

Thanks Ana! The low tide at sunset was really cool so I wasn't too sorry about the sunset not having much color, I was able to try some shots I haven't done before (swirling tidepools). Now I just have to wait for low tide + awesome sunset and see what happens

coscorrosa

eoren1 wrote:

Ron-
These are awesome!
Would you mind sharing some exif data? Especially focal length and aperture? These feel like they were taken at about 10mm on a crop or 16mm on a FF. Guessing f/8 or 11 to keep the foreground object and distance in great focus. Am I close
Thanks!
E

Done, focal length on most was pretty wide (some at 16mm on a FF), aperture usually around f/14 or f/16, sometimes more to increase motion, sometimes less to reduce the shutter time (especially at dawn when f/7.1 meant a 15s exposure).

f/16 is what I generally shoot when I want "most" of the scene in focus, I only go smaller to increase the shutter speed. I usually make sure the main subject is in focus and then hope everything else is reasonably sharp after that.

coscorrosa

Dwayne Oakes wrote:

Wow ! Another great set Ron ! Man you must have a tough time
culling your work with so many keepers. lol If you had to cull this set
and only keep the very best one, which one would pick ? For me photo 1
is close but is a tad dark and not much happening with light at that time.
I like photo 5 the best for light, motion and comp.

Take care,

Dwayne Oakes

Thanks Dwayne! If I had to pick one it would be the third just because I've never shot something like that before. I noticed the little foam swirling on the tide pool and thought it would look cool with a long exposure.

As for keepers... it doesn't take me long to go through my photos (I have a weird kind of OCD where I can't leave a set unprocessed for more than a few days without getting itchy). I shoot a high volume at each location, but generally vary the compositions quite a bit and it's not too hard to pick at the end which ones to keep and which ones to toss. I'm getting better at being able to make that determination in the field but I still get a few stinkers along the way

coscorrosa

Abiciriderback wrote:

Hey Ron.

Another nice series. Funny something keeps drawing us back. I made a sudden business trip over here yesterday (Monday) unfortunately the sunset didn't happen with the approaching storm. As I reply sitting in my hotel room in Forks we have about 4" of snow on the ground hope it stays on the beach for the next few hours

Ray Still

Oh man, snow on the beach would be so awesome... I hope it worked out!

The great thing about the beaches in Olympic National Park is they're open pretty much year round, unlike the mountain passes and trails which are often closed. I'm sure I'll make one or three more trips before the winter is over.

coscorrosa

kdog wrote:

Let me get this straight. You got up at 1:00 AM, and drove some 5 hours or more to take pictures? You're wacked. :crazy No wonder nobody else manages to get the shots you do.

Super shots, all of them. But those first three shots blow my mind and it's hard to focus on the rest after seeing them. Truly awesome work.

I love the way you've been embedding video clips into your posts lately. They're truly like a live window into the scene.

Cheers,
-joel

That's close, I didn't get up at 1:00 AM I got up at 7:00 AM on Friday (and just didn't fall asleep). The drive was only 4.5 hours though, not 5 hours (and didn't break any speed laws significantly as I had plenty of time and it was dark and I wasn't 100% alert ).

The first shots are my favorite too, I'm going to have to check the tide charts more carefully and catch some more swirling tide pools.

As for the video, thanks, it definitely puts a different spin on the location so you can get an idea (somewhat) of what it's like in person. I'm not kidding when I'm saying it was just the gull and me on the beach. It's an amazing feeling to have such a beautiful spot all to yourself.

Tee Why

Nice careful compositions. I like the first one the most with that rock looking like a small island, surrounded by water.
Very nice.

coscorrosa

bryanj87 wrote:

Those first three shots are just incredible. thumb

Funny you mention trying to build a bridge across that creek at Ruby Beach. When I was out there, I watched a group of drunken fishermen try to do the same thing. They failed, but provided the dozen or so people there with a good laugh.

One of the great myths in life is that you need alcohol or some other drug to be intoxicated, I'm living proof that that's not the case.

The thing is I fully expected it not to work (gave myself about 5% chance), but I didn't have much else to do then. The bridge successfully spanned the gap, but wasn't tall enough so some water flowed over it (and though I can haul 40 lbs. of camera crap on my back, dragging a large 200 lb. piece of driftwood that would actually stand a chance of succeeding is beyond my capabilities).

I should have set the camera on a tripod and captured my failure on video.... maybe next time.