Beach / Sunset Pictures

Becky

Moose,
I'm headed to the beach this summer. I have a Canon T2i straight out of the box. What do you recommend for taking the best beach pictures (bright sunny day) and sunset pictures (with or without people in the foreground)? THANKS!
I love your webpage
-Becky

chrispcanon

When you find out please tell me, thanks!

Becky

anyone? anyone? lol...

PBked

Hi Becky,
A polarizing filter or a good UV filter is good to have. If nothing else they will protect your lens from sand. A good air blower, like the rocket blower, is a good idea to keep sand off your camera body.
As for settings - on a bright, sunny day you could use the 'sunny 16' rule ie. aperture= f16, shutter speed=125 and ISO= 100. These settings on a bright day will always give a perfect exposure with everything in focus (trust me).
If you want to get creative and blur backgrounds or foregrounds then you need to use a wider aperture (smaller F numbers) to achieve smaller depths of field.
One way to do this would be to set P mode and then turn the command dial. As you do this you will see that your exposure values change. These are known as equivalent exposures and the technique is known as Program shift. I might add that in this mode, I would advise setting your ISO to auto(800); any higher ISO setting might lead to unwanted noise.
Hope this doesn't sound too complicated. Good luck at the beach.
Regards
PBked