Better Photos at the Seaside

The seaside offers light and horizons you won’t find anywhere else — but also some very particular traps: brightness that’s often stronger than it appears, and an environment that shows no mercy to camera gear.

Light stronger than it looks

Water and sand bounce back a large share of the sunlight, much like snow in the mountains: automatic exposure can underexpose the scene, leaving the sea duller and greyer than it really is. A slight positive exposure compensation, or checking the histogram rather than the rear screen (unreadable in full sun), corrects this offset.

The best hours for the sea

The beginning and end of the day remain the most generous moments: low, golden light sculpts the waves and the sand, where midday sun flattens everything and casts hard shadows under faces. Low tide, by revealing reflections and textures on the wet sand, often adds an extra dimension to the composition.

A polarising filter, almost essential

A polarising filter cuts reflections on the surface of the water and strengthens the contrast between sky and sea — one of the most useful accessories for this kind of scene, provided you orient it correctly (its effect varies with the angle to the sun).

Protecting your gear from sand and salt spray

Fine sand works its way into everything, including zoom and focusing mechanisms, and salt spray accelerates corrosion of metal parts — two silent but formidable enemies of camera equipment. Changing lenses out of the wind, systematically wiping down the camera after a seaside session, and never setting gear directly on the sand prevent most of the long-term damage.