Surf Photography

[Yawarrior]

Hi guys! I'm new to the site and this is my first post. I gotta say that I'm glad that I found this because I was getting zero help from online searches elsewhere. Anyway, I love surfing and this post is about surf photography: I want to start taking nice epic pictures of me and my friends surfing.

My question is: What is a good dslr camera for a budget of about $800? I am currently looking at the Canon Rebel series, but I have been told that the camera is not so good for surfing because of it having a plastic body and thus being open to sand and dirt damage from long exposures at the beach and ocean. Maybe I should upgrade or perhaps look at some Nikons?

I know that I will need a zoom lens, but I am hoping that I will be able to buy a lens and camera for $800 or maybe a little bit more. Any help would be great and again, thanks so much.

[jaffa1949]

Yawarrior, I have been using Canon cameras for surf photography for a long time, in the digital range my cheaper body is the EOS 400D which was 10 MP as an entry point SLR, I now shoot with a EOS 550D 18 MP my initial advice is get a basic body and spend the money on good lenses I have as my largest a 400 L series lens, don't worry about the plastic body because no matter what if you don't look after it salt and sand will quickly destroy it.

Help in this is having good insulated carry cases and cleaning clothes.
Sure a plastic camera body will warp if you leave it in the sun or directly in your car, so back to the carry case.
On current figures you are looking at about $600 US for a body and then about up to $2000 for the lens.
Second hand or ebay may help.
Nikon runs the same way in price and the quality is similar, down to preferences I guess!

BTW you will end taking plenty of photos of your friends and a lot less surfing and the budget your propose is at the bottom end however you can move up by charging your friends for the shots so you can upgrade your equipment.
Mercenary I know, but even printing shots on your computer at a quality your friends will want will cost you for paper and inks.

Here's one of my shots taken with the 400D body and the 400L series lens

This shot will blow up to A3 size quite well, if you want to blow up bigger you need to get a greater megapixel rating, that's getting cheaper all the time but still dearer than the entry point cameras.
Good luck

[Yawarrior]

Thanks. I didn't know that leaving a camera in your car could warp it. Yikes. Vital crucial information thanks. And so a carrying case and cleaning cloths are very important you say?

Also, $2000 for a lens?? Wow. I can definitely afford a body now, but that lens price is crazy. I think that even if it is mercenary, I will probably have to start charging my friends and acquaintances for pictures haha. Thanks so much Jaffa.

[Jimi]

Don't get discouraged about prices of lenses too much. While jaffa is spot on in his advice, $2000 on a lense won't get you what the dedicated pros use. Unfortunately surfing needs more zoom that pushes up costs, and also needs fast shutterspeeds that massively pushes up the cost of the lense.

When starting out, you will find the Canon twin lense IS kit is excellent for the money, and 250mm zoom is enough to get close to the surfing.

In a few years, once you get the feel of it, then think about upgrading the lense!

[jaffa1949]

Don't get discouraged about prices of lenses too much. While jaffa is spot on in his advice, $2000 on a lense won't get you what the dedicated pros use. Unfortunately surfing needs more zoom that pushes up costs, and also needs fast shutterspeeds that massively pushes up the cost of the lense.

When starting out, you will find the Canon twin lense IS kit is excellent for the money, and 250mm zoom is enough to get close to the surfing.

In a few years, once you get the feel of it, then think about upgrading the lense!

Jimi has a piece of good advice here Canon and Nikon often offer their good basic twin lens offer as an entry level and many people have started this way.
This is good advice and a way to learn the art and craft of shooting before you commit big bucks to it.
I was cashed up for my retirement and had been shooting for many years so the full kit i have was a reward I make more money shooting Australia birds than surfing but it is all a pittance really it's more about doing something I really enjoy

And do ask your mates to pay a little as you are feeding their ego and losing surfing time

Have fun with it, it's great!

[jaffa1949]

Just a further follow up for you to consider a slightly cheaper way to get some shots some surf and save some money.
Olympus and some of the other brands have some really good genuinely water proof cameras that are now 14 Megapixels or more They are not SLRs but can do some good water shots and there is a wrist mounted band that is suitable for wearing whilst surfing that enables you to carry them and set up decent shots.
All of that would be suitable within your budget but they are next to useless for land based surfing shots, give nice background landscape scenery shots though.
They IMO are better than the Hero Go pros which after a while produce similarly cliche shots.

If you go this way make sure you get a camera with at least a 10 metre or more rating any less is only splash proof really, use silicon O ring rubber on any flaps or opening parts
More details
Some of the cameras that fill this usage are
Olympus TG810
Nikon Coolpix 16 AW100
Panasonic Lumix DMC FT3
pentax Optio WG-1.
the wrist thingy is called a wrist pod find it by googling.
Depending in which country you live they may have different tech specs. and of course prices and warranties . This applies to SLRs too.

Again good luck when you do get shooting post some shots.

[Roy Stewart]

Get a 600D they shoot HD video, and the digital zoom is so good that the standard lens pack is equivalent to up to 3000mm tele.

None of the other canon SLR's have that feature.

We got ours for about $900.

[Jimi]

just thought I'd self plug a bit here - shots taken on Canon 50d with 70-200 L series f 2.8 lense with 2x teleconverter- to show what you can get with expensive equipment.

I started out with a simple canon 400d kit years ago, and have progressively upgraded bits. The last bit I bought was actually the 50d body, simply because I started doing a few weddings and needed a second body for the sake of avoiding lense changes.

http://www.filteredlights.com/surf/?p=104

[jaffa1949]

Nice work Jimi, my go to surf lense is the 100/400 l series Canon so it's not surprising we are getting similar shots I too started on the 400D.

My great love is shooting the local wildlife and the occasional landscape.
Contact/PM me if you ever get to the deep south of NSW shoot some breeze some surf some shots and some coffee

There are a couple of natural surf shot vantage points

[dizzeeP]

Can't go wrong with the Canon 550D, shoots HD video too, I've had one, it's go a lot of bells and whistles packed into it for the price, trust me.

[jaffa1949]

I didn't have a good day water shooting the other day.
some things to consider:

Surf was small and no challenging rips or stuff tick

Light was good tick.

Olympus Muji 10 metre waterproof, in housing, batteries full, settings right tick
Bright sun shine, clean water tick

Couldn't see through view finder or the LCD screen on the back of camera due to bright sunlight fail
Point and click hoping to judge shots fail =, chopped heads
Time lag between shots and from press to shot fail shots don't look anything like I planned fail
Set zoom to close equaling general oblique angles fail
Exercise in getting shots about 2hours swimming and bobbing under waves tick
Shots taken 40 successful shots 1 severe fail ratio

Remedies pull back the zoom to towards landscape work the photos with crop, work out some sort of marker on case for parallax error to line up shot. Try shooting with the water proof housing ( maybe)
Give thanks I didn't make this attempt at pipeline tick

Conclusion; not bad from land , water Hmmmmm fail
Report; needs to do technical homework and practice.

[drowningbitbybit]

Water photography is hard!
I've only played at shots from the water with a point-and-shoot, but its always been similar - can't see jack while Im doing the shooting, and the shots never come out quite like what I thought they would

My only comment would be - one decent shot out of 40? That's not all that bad. Give me a camera for two hours in any kind of action setting, and I'll take 1000+ shots and then use a dozen (or less) of them. Set it on high speed drive and just keep your finger on that button* - it's not as satisfying as taking that one perfect shot, I know, but...


* unless you're using a film camera. It gets real expensive.

[surf patrol]

Let's see some of them then jaffa!

[jaffa1949]

:lol:

Water photography is hard!
I've only played at shots from the water with a point-and-shoot, but its always been similar - can't see jack while Im doing the shooting, and the shots never come out quite like what I thought they would

My only comment would be - one decent shot out of 40? That's not all that bad. Give me a camera for two hours in any kind of action setting, and I'll take 1000+ shots and then use a dozen (or less) of them. Set it on high speed drive and just keep your finger on that button* - it's not as satisfying as taking that one perfect shot, I know, but...


* unless you're using a film camera. It gets real expensive.

I was hung on my own standards of make sure the shot is good, the camera didn't have the action drive of clickty clickty click, more like click think about it an reset!
Would have got the shots if I could have seen to shoot.
Strangely enough it was a break where land based can pull shots that look like water shots.
Having learnt I can try again, just waiting for it to have a cooperative surf for my next lesson!
I Padding at the moment, I'll put a couple comparison shots up when I get to the big Mac.

[jaffa1949]

Same spot for both photos
number one the only one that worked in the water, standing on the bank getting charged down scary

I'd watched the guy ( i know his surfing quite well) and somehow I I knew exactly where he was going to do what, clicked off a whole sequence but the lack between the shots taking up meant I missed the rest then of course I had to duck through the wave. I can see why they wear Gaths.

The other was on a bigger day shot from the beach with the amount of water moving I glad I wasn't trying to swim as well!

.

Hats off to the good water photographers.

[Buttertoes]

Great shots Jaffa! Scary waves though lol
The second reminds me of a random nightmare once that I was paddling out finding myself in the break zone of an enormous wave thinking "this is it..."

[jaffa1949]

Thanks Buttertoes, I've posted some more shots of my local breaks in the photos section.
Enjoy your coming summer!

[surf patrol]

Thanks for posting them in the photos section, I've just seen them there.

If anyone's interested, they are the latest shots here

[jaffa1949]

I just thought I'd put up some other water sots from the small contest day with a couple of cheats you can see.

Here is the bog standard going away from you shot, shot whilst standing and with a clear line of sight no need to duck, just be prepared to get smacked in the ear by the lip.

Another water shot not particularly brilliant same spot as above, note the horizon line of the hill in the background!

The next shot is the same as the previous shot but I have tilted the horizon line of the wave with the straighten effect in photoshop to give it a little more grunt again note the horizon line of the hill behind.. You need to be careful with straighten otherwise the effect looks a little bent!

Nice thing about photos they stop the world what happens in the second after is not relevant, you can be in a barrel looking good for the photo and smashed the next.

[johnw2738]

I am a photographer and i know exactly how difficult is this shot to take ! hats off

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