Scouting Location: Light Through the Day

The next exercise in Light is shooting on set-up hourly from sunrise to sunset.  When I told my wife about it, she said, "All day?"  Yes, all day.  And because this exercise is such a large commitment in time, it seems prudent to invest a little more scouting location and making sure you are ready to go when the day arrives.

To that end I was up at 5:30 this morning to take some preliminary shots and to see how the sun will play in the images I'm hoping to take.  The results are encouraging.  Since I will have plenty of time, I'm planning on doing two setups, both of which can be seen here.  The only thing I don't know yet, and may not have a chance to check before I do the all-day shoot, is whether the sun will be in view as it sets across the ocean.  I'm hoping it will be out of range to the left.  

Physical set-up:  The shot of the canyon is through what looks in old castles to be gun slots, narrow windows  through which rifles could be pointed to fire down on attackers.  Because the space is so narrow, I can't fit a tripod inside, and setting it behind the slot results in a restricted view.  I took several shots this morning to see what might look best, and the one I have posted here seems to be it.  I need to print out a copy of this photo as reference, decide on a focal length, and mark a spot on the concrete where I can rest the bottom of the camera body to produce regular images.  For the seaside shot, I will work off a tripod, but will need to bring a box on which to set it in order to get some additional height over the outer wall of the building.

Camera settings:  One consideration is limiting the number of changes I have to make in-camera between setups.  I'd like to keep as much as possible the same, which shouldn't be too hard to do as I'll be shooting in the same light and landscapes with great depth of field.  

File type: JPG and RAW

Focal Length:  Canyon 24, Seaside 35

WB:  Two sets:  Daylight and Shade

Focus:  Auto-serve
Area Mode:  Auto-area

Metering:  Matrix
Picture Control:  Neutral
Active D-Lighting:  Normal

So, this means each time I move set-up, I need to change only Focal Length and WB.