Surfer shots from today

RobNZ · Jul 7, 2010

Spent an hour or so shooting surfers late this afternoon as the decent swell dies off. All shot handheld at 420mm and standing.

1. Fairly clean shot and I think it shows the scale of things fairly well.

2. Action is good I think, but the offshore wind and break of the wave threw up a few too many droplets for my liking.

3. If the wave in the foreground hadnt have been in frame I think it would have been much better, kinda like how the surfer looks like he is floating on air almost, looks like he is willing the sea to part with his arm gestures, haha. I think the lip of the wave knocked him off shortly after this shot. Not all that happy with the quality of this one.

C&C welcomed.

ghache · Jul 7, 2010

great captures!
the 3rd one is my fav!

vansnxtweek · Jul 7, 2010

These are nice man!! I like them a lot. #2 is my favorite I think..even though the spray is heavy its still a sick shot!

Lwilliams · Jul 7, 2010

Very cool! I like shot #2 the best because I think that the surfer's body and board against the surf create and interesting shape in terms of positive and negative space. A very dynamic shot too.

RobNZ · Jul 7, 2010

Thanks for the feedback.

JBWilson · Jul 7, 2010

I'm really digging number 2. I like the action!

dak1b · Jul 7, 2010

great action shots.

#2 is my favorite. shows a lot of emotion. very nice

RobNZ · Jul 8, 2010

One thing I did try to avoid yesterday was shooting the surfers straight on to gain a better composition, however all of the above were shot straight on and these are by far the best of them all and I am not seeing many complaints.

I did try and concentrate on shooting from about a 30-45 degree angle but the distances from the subjects were just way too far to retain any useable level of detail. Much better when you can get enough detail to see the faces, regardless of point of view I think. The grimace on the face of the guy in the 2nd shot is clearly evident and adds to the drama I think.

I dont usually trust "random" autofocus points to focus on what I actually want, so I used a manual selection of the centre point on AI servo, next time depending on the break I will use either the centre left or right to focus thereby leaving me a better composition right from camera without having to discard a heap of pixels to get a better composition.

I have posted the following before but I thought I would add them so I have them in one place, blog like I guess.