Surfing Waves

pretty new to surf photgraphy and having some problems.

i keep noticing that when im shooting in sunlight even with the sun behind me im still getting over exposure on shots, when i look at the histogram most of the sky is over exposed and the white water also. whats the best way to counter act this? changing the ISO didnt seem to do much

the best shot i got was in tv with the ISO 400 at f7.1 and it was horribly over exposed.

im presuming the tv is the best mood to shoot in for surfing.

last question is when shooting in continous mood, it seems a lot quicker to shoot in sport mood rather than in tv, in tv it takes 3 shots and then stops to re-focus while in sport its just continous, am i doing something wrong here?

im using a canon 1000d. thanks in advance lads

If it is either consistently over cast, or consistently sunny, go ahead and shoot in manual. You want to be getting good exposure on the people surfing. So just shoot some test shots and then stick with that exposure. Try to aim above 1000th of a second, lowest ISO you can go to reduce noise and increase sharpness (except ISO 50 if you have it), and don't be afraid to open the lens way up, as long as you know you can nail the focus.

Post a picture or two, try to post an unedited one.

Which brings me to my next point, shoot raw!!! I shot surfing once, on manual, first 4 shots i didn't even look at, looked down they were pure white. Opened them up in photoshop and adjusted the raw exposure slider--came right back!!!

So shoot raw, and you can fix a ton in photoshop. Also, veer towards underexposure, because you can fix shadow spots, but you can't fix blown out areas, because there really is no information.

Also a polarizing filter will help you get some of that glare from the water off. They can be as little as 20, or as much as 200. All depending on the brands and the size.

ya, i either use a polarizing or a UV filter plus a sun shade on the end of the lens. made a huge difference

deleted the pics due to them being awful ill get more this weekend, and post them. thanks for the tips lads

is photoshop a must so for editing surf photos? is it pricey? working on a budget

It's pricey.....but I *know* of some people who have bit torrented it. I'm not suggesting this by any means........

It's not necessary, but hardly anybody puts out photos that aren't at least a bit adjusted. The software that came with your camera should have pretty much equal raw adjustment. But you can make some biiigg differences if you know what you are doing and have good taste.

O_Danny_Boy wrote:deleted the pics due to them being awful ill get more this weekend, and post them. thanks for the tips lads

is photoshop a must so for editing surf photos? is it pricey? working on a budget

its not a must.. i have used photoshop and all of the features and tools might be a little bit intimidating...

in other words.. you will probably need to spend some time using it. If you were to buy photoshop... it would be around $1000 i think.. haha.. its crazy

On my computer windows picture viewer seems to have some auto correct functions and stuff.. that may be all you are looking for

ok a few things:

1: If you're consistently overexposing, you can force the camera to underexpose by a set EV value. On a canon 400d there's a button immediately to the right of the LCD screen - hold it down and turn the finger-dial to adjust the auto exposure value. There will be something similar, and probably in the same spot on the 1000d.

2: Photoshop is good, but not essential - There's a free program that is every bit as good as Photoshop for 99% of things amateur photographers will ever need. It's called GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program) - just do a google search for it.


3: The photo mode I use for surf photography is Av. I can set my aperture to ~ 5 or 6 to give narrow depth of field, and the camera will automatically give me the right shutter speed (once the EV is set to underexpose by 0.5)

4: I also use a custom colour profile - look it up in the manual for the camera - where my saturation is +3 and everything else is set to 0. This lifts the colours, and makes your surfer stand out from the water better.

5: Sometimes manual focus is better - since you can set the focus point exactly on the take off point and just click whenever the surfer is doing something interesting - like going backwards over the falls!

These are the techniques I use...
and you can see my photos here:
http://filteredlights.com/cronullasurf.html

Sorry, also forgot to mention - check that you're using evaluative metering - NOT point metering!

O_Danny_Boy wrote:pretty new to surf photgraphy and having some problems.

i keep noticing that when im shooting in sunlight even with the sun behind me im still getting over exposure on shots, when i look at the histogram most of the sky is over exposed and the white water also. whats the best way to counter act this? changing the ISO didnt seem to do much

the best shot i got was in tv with the ISO 400 at f7.1 and it was horribly over exposed.

It just occurred to me that shooting in Tv mode might be your problem - In bright sunlight with ISO400 and f7.1 your shutter speed (depending on lense of course) should be up around 1/1000 or 1/1500th... I suspect that you may be shooting at a shutter speed too slow for the camera to be able to compensate... next time you're out try taking a few shots in the automatic mode and see if they're also overexposed.

Meetering is the key!

If your in manual mode or forcing an aperture etc you can hit limits on the shutter speed which will over expose.

ANY meetering mode will do and will be good and/or bad - spot/center weighed will be good if you manage to get the surfer (for the surfer) but bad for the scene.

Use exposure compensation (EV) for scenes you know the meetering will get wrong, dial in + or - exposure.

Surfing shots are hard though as the surfer is usualy in a dark wetsuit and the wave quite bright. The scene comprises typicaly too much dynamic range to capture properly sometimes and you have to make a choice what to blow, check out your hystogram on your shots - or take a few test shots see what exposure should be OK.


A CPL (polariser) will be good IF you have enough shutter speed, they take 1.5-2 stops of light away so can cause issues, also you need to adjust them if you change viewpoints etc.

If you shoot RAW you need to work on the files after, a little tweaking of the shadows/highlites, levels, sharpening etc. Photoshop is good for this but not the only tool.

Lightroob, bibble, picasa, painshop, canons own software etc all do it.

1000D probably has a maximum shutter speed of 1/4000, anything faster than that you'll have to change ISO (400 to 200 or 100) or stop down some.

I doubt that was the issue though more likely bad meetering.

wow didnt know how many other keen shutterbugs where on here, ould echo as above and throw in a ND grad filter if you are shooting shots with a reasonable horizon line (IE not close up, in a pipe etc) ND filters are overlooked today but still actually change the data recorded so are worthwhile (where as colour filters etc you may as well now apply later in PS)

hey lads thanks for all the advice, ill take some shots this weekend and put them up so ye can have a good laugh at

And don't delete them, post no matter how embarrassed you are!

im pretty happy with them, using the exposure compensation helped loads, even tho i had it set wrong so they came out dark and had to be fixed with picaso.

they were all shot at ISO 100, 1/1000th and f10 in av mode. didnt move off those settings, what difference would there have been is i changed the aperture or the shutter speed?

If you opened up the aperture (gone lower f/ number) the background and foreground would have been less in focus. This is known as depth of field. Past 1/1000th, you wouldn't have noticed much in change of shutter speed, but it will need to be faster in order to open up the aperture.

What lens are you using and how far are you from the surfers?

im using a sigma 170-500 APO with a monopod, its a hard wave to shoot as the wave is always in front of anyone whos on it, the shots were taken at around bout 300-400 meters away

never realised how hard it is to shoot good photos when all i wanted to do was jump in, think i rushed some shots as a result. when i got home i binned a few that i rushed that if i had taken my time with would have been pretty sweet

would a higher shutter speed reduce some of those out of focus shots?

Shutter speed has nothing to do with focus.

Apart from prehaps relating to depth of field if you change the aperture.

But even then the center of the plane of focus (i.e. your focus point) should still be correctly placed where you want it (ie the surfer usualy).

So even with a very shallow DoF you want the intrest/subject in the plane of focus.

Shutter speeds for the most part just have to be sufficient to negate camera shake (1/focal length) and , if your after it (and with surfing you usualy are), to freeze the action ( 1/250th or faster is plenty).


Add in to that lenses have areas/settins there better with than others.

So usualy there best not at extreems of focal lengths (i.e. not at 170 or 500) and usualy best stopped down a bit (i.e. not wide open = f2.8 or f5.6 etc) and before diffraction steps in and starts to soften the image ( F9-F11 or so on croped cameras).

So try shooting 470-480mm max ad at f8 or so max.

Also remember Depth of field is a factor of focal length (longer = less) focus point (closer = less) and aperture (larger/f2.8 = less, smaller, f22 = more).

good photos!:D

Ok, so I assume you were fully zoomed in on your 500mm lens right? In that situation you need the camera to be super steady, and use as fast a shutter speed as you can. Because the 1000D uses a small sensor, the effective focal length of your lense is increased too - so if you have the lens at 500mm, then in reality, your camera is seeing closer to 600mm - and that's HUGE for a monopod. If pros are using a lens that length, they are using a very very large aperture, and a very very fast shutterspeed.

Personally I'd have the aperture wide open (the smallest F-number possible is likely to be f2.8 ) and then I'd adjust the ISO to give the shutter speed somewhere around 1/1000th of a second or above. Also, if you're sure the focus is correct, but you still have a bit of blurring, it's most likely that there was a tiny bit of movement in the camera as you took the photo. This is usually a problem when using long lenses, because as you zoom in, the lens will amplify any movement (just think about how hard it is to hand hold a telescope compared with hand holding binoculars).