I’ve photographed it many times before, but wanted to get one last go at taking some digital pictures, as the only ones I have up till now are on film and scanned. So this was a planned shoot that I made this morning. Step 1, was knowing what the tide was doing. I looked it up on the BBC Tide Tables, and found the next tide that would be low around the same time as the start of ‘Blue Hour’. Low tide this morning was about 3:25am, and that was enough to know that I’d be able to get a shot of the stones on the beach, like the one above. Then, using the Photopills App, I knew that the Blue Hour would be starting around 4:15am. So I arrived at the beach about 3:50am and used my head torch to guide me across the rocks and into position…
Then, the next hour or so flew by, as I took one picture after another. The exposures were around f16-22 for up to 30 seconds. I was using my Sony A7iii together with a new Zeiss Loxia 21mm manual lens, which I am really pleased with. It is the easiest lens to focus and has a satisfying weight to it, as it is all glass/metal construction. It also makes amazing star lights on the lamp posts and lights.
The views out to sea were just as spectacular, and the light was a mix of reds and light greys. I was happy to see some clouds as there is just the hint of movement in the 30 seconds or so that the shutter was open.
All the images were post-processed using CaptureOne.
Penarth Pier is about 20 minutes drive from Cardiff city centre in South Wales. Using ‘What-Three-Words’ the location of these images were around this point – https://what3words.com/deals.wide.author
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