Tag Archives: Samuel H. Boardman State Park

Southern Oregon Coast

[/caption] Samuel H. Boardman state scenic corridor offers some of the best views along the Oregon coast. There are over 20 miles of trails that take you along narrow stretches of cliffs as well as private and seldom visited beaches. There are so few people that experience this part of Oregon that you can pretty much expect to have the entire trail system to your self. Only the most easily accessible parts of the trail system are populated with hikers or tourists. This photo was taken along a very unique part of the trail. The trail took you to the very edge of the cliffs and you could look directly down to the rough surf below. The views were awesome and there were dozens of wildflowers spread out along a bare stretch high above the cliffs. I decided to set up my tripod far enough away from the dangerous cliffs in order to try to get a good photo of the wildflowers and the streaming clouds high above. I was also wanting to include some of the rock islands and the ocean that seems far below. The winds were howling so I tried to position myself in order to avoid any camera shake. I made sure to use my tripod, bubble level and remote switch and set the camera to IS. I was hoping to have a short exposure and large field of view so I set my Sigma 17-70mm lens to 17mm and positioned the camera at about 45 degrees towards the wildflowers. The camera was in program/normal mode and I attached my CIR-PL and warming filter due to the intense glare. I also had the ISO at 100 and the white balance at -0.7, which caused the aperture to be at F-6.3 and the shutter speed at 1/160 second. I took this photo at about 4:30pm and the sun was at about a 90 degree angle, which helped me eliminate most of the glare. For the best photo opportunities you want to visit during late spring or early summer since most of the wildflowers are at there best during these months. The temperatures are perfect but the wind can be a little chilly.

Southern Oregon Beach, OR

[/caption] If you didn’t know that this beach was located in Oregon you would think that this photo was taken somewhere else in the world. Samuel H. Boardman State Park has dozens of opportunities to photograph some of the most scenic and isolated places available along the west coast of the United States. This particular beach barely gets 100 visitors a year and that’s mostly due to the fact that no one really knows that it exists as well as the fact that the populations along the coast is very small. I was so impressed with this beach that I wanted to see if I could get a photo of the water moving while setting the shutter priority in order to get the movement. However, it was 11:20am and the sun was very high overhead since this photo was taken on 6/23/11. Luckily, I was able to find some shade just below the massive rocks to the left and I was able to keep the sun at a 90 degree angle. I made sure to attach my ND4 as well as my CIR-PL and warming filter so I could cut down the amount of sun entering through the lens. I was using my Sigma 17-70mm lens and set the focal length to 17mm in order to maximize the field of view and get the most panoramic photo that I could. I was only able to set the shutter speed to 2 seconds due to the brightness of the sun but I was happy with the movement of the water as the wave receded from the beach. I set the ISO at 100 and reduced the white balance to -0.2 so I could keep the exposure to a minimum. The aperture was automatically set at F-22 due to the filters that I was using as well as the ISO and white balance setting.