Taking photos at the beach can be quite the challenge and the ultra-bright environment can often play tricks on your digital camera. The bright sun reflecting off of the sand and water can fool your camera’s light metering system into thinking your subject is too bright, which will unfortunately result in an underexposed image.
In order to ensure that your photos are properly exposed when shooting at the beach, take a look at your digital camera to see if it offers a beach scene mode. This specific scene mode will automatically program your digital camera to take the best photo possible in the bright and reflective environment. When set to the beach scene mode, your camera will know that it’s taking a photo in a bright environment and will properly expose the scene, or more importantly, your subject.
Turning on the beach scene mode on a Samsung digital camera is easy. Simply access your camera’s scene modes by either turning the mode dial to SCENE or by pressing the MENU button on the back of the camera. Once you’ve dialed up the available scene modes, scroll through to select “Beach & Snow.”
This is also an opportunity to make use of your camera’s flash. As we discussed in Tip 2, bright, sunny conditions can often cause shadows to appear on your subjects. Try using your camera’s flash to fill in any of those shadows and to truly make your subject pop!
Be sure to give your digital camera’s beach scene mode a try the next time you head to the beach. You’ll definitely be pleased by the results.
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