Surfing @ Noosa Heads

[spelchek]

Managed to get up to Noosa for an early morning session at the popular point break. Unfortunatly, it seems that morning is not ideal due to the position of the sun... causing the subjects to be badly shadowed/underexposed... couldnt get to the other side, else Id be washed up on rocks!! :) I tried to compensate by using the flash, but the underwater housing severely diminishes the flash's range it seems.

Hope to manage an afternoon session soon, as Im sure it would give much better lighting.

Here are my 4 favs from the 130-odd snaps I took. I found by the end of the session I was really starting to get the hang of it... especially timing the shutter delay on my A85 (which is quite staggeringly bloody long I've dioscovered).

For anyone interested, I used a Fstop of 8, and shutter speeds of 1/1000 and 1/1600 with ISO100. The 1/1000 shots worked best.

I got a great reception from the people surfing.. seems they all wanna be 'on film'!! I got lots of requests for photos from the surfers out there, and have already emailed some to one of them.

Anyway.. any critiques/suggestions more than welcome

http://users.bigpond.net.au/spelchek/webimages/surfing/1450.jpg
http://users.bigpond.net.au/spelchek/webimages/surfing/1451.jpg
http://users.bigpond.net.au/spelchek/webimages/surfing/1474.jpg
http://users.bigpond.net.au/spelchek/webimages/surfing/1490.jpg

[garybu]

hey liked the pics....did u zoom to get so close? .......I might try your settings in future....Usually I just used the p mode so I could use continuous shoot and just held finger down hoping lol....got lots of bits and pieces:)

[spelchek]

Cheers Garybu,

I played with the 'p' mode and continuos shoot, but in the end, I found that using the manual focus, shutter speed and apature as I did resulted in much better shots.. the key was getting the timeing right (due to the shutter lag). Towards the end of the shoot I really think i was coming to terms with the shutter lag, and as such, able to work around it.

I have found (by readiung up on it) that playing with apeture settings results in differing 'depth of field' that is in focus. In really simple terms, with the focal length of the cameras lens, and a small apeture, you get a considerable amount of distance away from you that will be in focus. Ths distance of focus (or depth of field) changes with the apeture setting, and the amount of zoom (focal length) you use. There is an excellent depth of field calculator to be found here:http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html
This tool will allow you to work out your apeture settings in advance (this noosa shoot was plain old luck that it worked as good as it did) and give you a rough idea of what will be in focus at a given focus/apeture combination.

Sorry, I'm just way too much of a newbie to all this to explain it better... go0 to that link , it will become pretty obvious what I mean when you play around with the calculator.

The big advantage of using a manual focus , of course, is that you dont get the autofocus delay. Hope this makes sense(especially when you check that link out).

All I need now is to get back to noosa to practise more... wouldnt you know it, 2 1/2 - 3ft swells on moday when I was at noosa... today im in brisbane and i hear its 1 & 1/2 meters!!!! DOH!!!!!


PS.. no I wasnt zoomed in in those shots... just CLOSE!!! :) And a word of advice.. longboard fins (especially on OLD longboards) are MUCH bigger/longer than fins on the modern boards!! ;)

[garybu]

hi there again...going out again in the morning and will try shooting just in the manual mode

just some silly ?'s from a complete novice lol using a canon a75

so some silly ?'s for anybody out there?

1. should i shoot centre weighted spot or evaluative?

2. effect off..vivid...neutral or low sharpening

3. wat iso speed? 50-400 range would it be right to say the lighter or brighter conditions the lower the no req?

4. white balance set to?

5. just set ap to f8 and adjust shutter and look at results? and set mf to 5m?

[spelchek]

My answeres (disclaimer.. as I've said all along.. Im a complete nong at this photog thing.. but im tryoin my best to learn!! :))

1. I was using evaluative.... I too would love to hear some knowledgable opinions on this...
2. I used effect off.. but mabye vivid might be worth playing with (i intend to laterthis week when i get back out)
3. I was using ISO100...
4. HAd mine set to daylight
5. thats pretty much what I did garybu... at f8 and man focus set to 5m, you shourl get everything in focus from just in front of you out to infinity (this is with the lens totally zoomed out.. or at its wide angle setting).

Anyway, they were my settings... GL mate, cant wait to see what ya get!! :)

PS.. cant wait for Wednesday... Noosa Longboard festival... I've approached the organiser, and he says he'll be able to get me in the water to shoot some of the heats!!!.. man looking forward to that :)

[garybu]

went down to the coast on Sunday but alas onshore winds so didn't even bother taking any pics or anything. Came back to Geelong and there was a bike race on so have attatched a pic ...not quite keeping with the thread lol...looking forward to your longboard shots.

[Mills]

Great Shots. Our good friends are in Noosa right now and we may be heading that way in April. Thanks for letting me see how beautiful it is.