Tag Archives: Seattle pier

Olympic Mountains, WA

[/caption] Some of the best views of the Olympic mountains is from almost any of the piers lining downtown Seattle. Depending on the weather and time of day you can get some really spectacular photos looking across Elliot Bay. Due to Seattle’s weather you are most likely going to get some fantastic clouds swirling around the mountains as well as some pretty sic clouds in the upper parts of the atmosphere. You are also able to include several different types of boats in the foreground if you want to fill the photo with additional subjects. This photo has the Victoria Clipper returning from Canada but I took several other photos that have sailboats and a tanker. You can also wait for one of the numerous ferries to steam across the landscape. If you are lucky enough to be here during a cloudless sunset you are sure to get some unbelievable photos. However, on this trip the clouds dominated the evenings. I took this photo at about 8:15pm and the sun was pretty much hidden behind the clouds. I set the ISO to 100 and the white balance to 0 in order to get the best exposure. Since I had the camera mode in Normal/Program the aperture was automatically set at F-4. I was surprised at the F stop setting since I had attached my CIR-PL and warming filter and figured that the F stop would have been around F-10. However, since the clouds and water was still creating some glare the shutter speed was at 1/40 second. I was using my Sigma 17-70mm lens and set the focal length at 58mm. Since Seattle is pretty far from the Olympic mountains its hard to see the mountains unless you have the focal length between 40 and 60mm. However, since the mountains are so broad you would have to have your focal length at around 25mm if you want to include all of the snow capped mountains. I also made sure to use my tripod, bubble level and remote switch to ensure that there would be no camera shake or blur.