Day 29
Frontside shred, shot in Cornwall with a borrowed EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS USM lens and ball head Manfrotto tripod.
I have found some excitement in shooting surf photos, even as I am realizing that it is very difficult to produce good images. This shot is one of the best from the session on Sunday. It’s cropped a bit, though the 70-200 had almost enough reach on my APS-C 7D, and this surfer and a few others were fairly close to the beach. This image came out of the camera pretty flat, having lost almost all contrast due to high glare on the water and less than perfect exposure (thank you, ACR and photoshop…). I can see that a good polarizer, good light, and a long (preferably fast prime) lens would be needed to get good shots (of course, hard shredders as subjects really help). The shots that I got that turned out well have made me understand how much respect is deserved by good 35mm photographers that supplied surf images to magazines for decades.
I must say that the wash of stoke that came over me while panning with a good surfer, hearing the machine gun click of 8fps fired as someone slashed the top of a barrel, and the end result of that moment frozen in time, has made me want to get into shooting surfing.
Stay tuned to my Smugmug gallery and my other blog for more of these.
