Nestled in the heart of Mendocino County lies the small coastal village of Point Arena, one of Northern California’s most scenic summertime tourist havens. The community is home to the Point Arena Lighthouse, which, at 115 feet tall, is the tallest lighthouse on the West Coast and also the closest location on the U.S. mainland (not counting Alaska) to Honolulu.

It’s not surprising that photographer and Tamron technical representative Rob Moody chose this location for a recent sunset shoot. “The Northern California coast is one of the most beautiful places on Earth to be at sunset,” he says. “The cool breeze ripples through your hair as you take in the crisp smell of misty saltwater in the air, and the relentless waves that crash against the coast erode the earth to form this incredible landscape.”

To capture his images on this photogenic peninsula jutting out into the Pacific, Moody brought along the new Tamron 18-270mm VC PZD lens. With its light 15.4-oz. weight and a 28-419mm equivalent (15X) zoom range, the 18-270 proved to be the ideal photographic companion. “My first impression of this lens: I was amazed at its size and weight,” he says. “I used to struggle to carry all the lenses you would need to shoot all the things the new 18-270 VC lens does. It’s the ultimate travel lens.”

The region’s most famous oceanside beacon was Moody’s first stop. “Lighthouses are great photographic subjects, and I enjoy the history behind them,” Moody explains. “Whenever I’m close to one, I make an extra effort to go shoot it.” The Point Arena Lighthouse was originally constructed in 1870 (the first lighthouse to be built out of steel and concrete), decimated by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and rebuilt in 1907—making it a worthy architectural artifact for Moody’s pictorial.

From the same position, Moody was able to show this coastline icon against the context of the precipice it’s perched on and the rest of its natural environment, then extend the lens to fill the frame with the lighthouse itself, as well as the neighboring museum and gift shop. “The freedom I enjoyed having just one lens was amazing,” says Moody. “There was no frustration of changing lenses in the wind, dealing with dust on the sensor, or carrying several lenses I might not even use.”

Because Moody was, at this point, shooting without a tripod, the 18-270’s Vibration Compensation technology also proved beneficial to keep the seamen’s signal tower supersharp. With the 18-270, it’s also possible to shoot handheld up to four shutter speeds slower than you normally would be able to.

After creating a few images of the lighthouse, Moody moved over to the cliffs just south of the lighthouse for the soon-to-arrive sunset. Because he didn’t want to miss any part of the gorgeous sky show, Moody nailed down his white balance before he even started shooting. “I avoid playing with the settings and reviewing every image during the critical moment—just get the white balance set and shoot,” he says. “You can review everything later.”

To compensate for the fluctuating color temperature as the afternoon morphed into evening, he set his white balance to “daylight” before he started shooting. “ Leaving your white balance in auto is a mistake — the color temperature changes by the second during sunrise and sunset,” he says. “To retain those beautiful saturated colors, use the sunlight WB, or sun icon setting. I always shoot a couple of test images and then dial it in with over/underexposure compensation on the fly.”

To capture the coastline itself at sunset, Moody used a slow shutter speed to create a painterly effect of the ocean spray moving past his open lens. “When the shutter speeds lengthened beyond a half of a second, I started to use my tripod,” he says.

Moody also wanted to show motion in the water while keeping the jagged rocks sharp for contrast. “For one image I did, I really liked the look of the misty water and movement along the pastel-colored cliffs,” he says. “I also loved the waterfall-like streams of water pouring back into the ocean on the left side of this particular image.”

Moody shot at 1/2 second to 1 second to achieve the look he was after, creating several images using this technique. “To me, this is one of the most exciting aspects of photography,” he says. “It’s the only media that gathers time in a single image—the applications for this are endless.”

To obtain a more unusual effect later on as the sun set even further, Moody started slowing down his shutter speeds even more. “The longer the shutter speed, the more the water ended up looking like clouds,” he says. “I just kept shooting as the sun set, creating even more compelling images.”

Moody praises his 18-270 lens for helping him achieve a full evening’s worth of eye-catching coastline images. “The 18-270 VC is small, lightweight, and versatile—there are definitely times when it’s great to have that all-in-one lens in your kit, and this was one of those times.”