When my wife Liz and I decided to spend our summer holidays in 2019 exploring Devon and Cornwall I got quite excited at the prospect of photographing the wild and rugged Atlantic north coast.
A friend of mine at work who knew the area advised me to pay a visit to Hartland Quay, so we took his advice and were just amazed at what we found there.
The scenery here was (and still is, no doubt) just jaw dropping, with a shoreline comprised of knife edge rocks constantly pummelled by the Atlantic ocean, backed by towering sea cliffs formed from strata twisted by huge forces into tortuous shapes.
Liz and I ended up making four visits here at various times of the day and night and in all sorts of weather and tide conditions.
And it was the ebbing tide, gradually exposing those fearsome underwater rock formations, that was the subject of this time lapse video.
Shot in bright sunlight, I wanted to eliminate as far as possible the rather jerky effect of the waves crashing onto the shoreline in order to emphasise the slow movement of the tide.
So I turned to my 10 stop neutral density filter which allowed me to use a shutter speed of 8 seconds, effectively blurring the waves and allowing the gradually receding tide to be seen more clearly.
Filename - hartland quay timelapse 04
Camera - Canon EOS 6D
Lens - 17-40mm zoom @ 23mm
Exposure (start of sequence) - 8 secs @ f8, ISO100
Exposure (end of sequence) - 8 secs @ f8, ISO100
Filters - 10 stop neutral density filter used to increase exposure time and smooth the water movement. 2 stop neutral density graduated filter used to reduce the brightness of the sky.
Shooting interval - 10 seconds
Location - Hartland Quay, Devon, England
This clip - HD 720p, 30fps (4K+, and HD formats also available)
Clip duration - 25 seconds
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