Seascape shoot at Kogelbaai with David & Shem

It all started with a tweet from Shem Compion on Easter Sunday saying he was planning a seascape shoot the next day.  I shoot landscapes from time to time, but I've never tackled seascapes before, so it was a welcome opportunity to try my hand at something new and to meet Shem before David Burstein and I head off to the Masai Mara with him in September.  After a morning of on and off rain in Cape Town that had me skeptical about our chances of good weather we headed off to meet Shem at the Dappat se Gat parking area in Kogelbaai at around 4pm.

Of course seascapes call for wide angle lenses, but I rarely head out on a photo trip without my Bigma and that proved useful while we waited at the parking spot. First we were treated to a fly-by by a Jackal Buzzard which yielded a few usable shots including the image that I'm currently using as the header for the blog:

and I quite liked this one too:

Then right next to the car I captured this Cape Robin-Chat:

With the distraction of the birds over, we headed down to the beach.  It soon became apparent that without the right kit I was going to battle to slow down my shutter speed sufficiently to capture much of the movement in the water that I was going for.  David & Shem both have beautiful Lee filters (both graduated and constant neutral density), but all I had available in the way of light limiting filters was my circular polariser.  With that fitted, the aperture stopped right down to f/22 and the ISO all the way down at 50 the slowest shutter speed I could manage we first arrived was 1/4s, but with swell running quite hard that was enough to bring out the movement in the breakers:

and in areas of the shore with significant movement, like this rock, though only on bigger, faster moving waves:

which occasionally had us (David, in this case) on the hop:

Fortunately the light soon started co-operating, thanks largely to the rainstorm that was approaching from the West.  As the sinking sun filtered through that we received beautiful yellow-golden light:

which lit up the clouds boiling over the top of the Kogelberg.  This is the first image I posted the next day...

... but the more I look at it, the more uncomfortable I am with that horrible blown out section of sky - a reminder once again that once your highlights are completely blown there's no rescuing them despite the extra latitude that RAW images give you.  Next time I set out to shoot seascapes, I definitely want a graduated filter in my bag.  Here are a few more shots from the afternoon:

and, finally, the one that I think is my favourite:

Be sure to check out David's and Shem's photos from the same shoot too, but don't forget to come back and leave me some feedback!