Santa Cruz Surfing

While on a bike ride in Santa Cruz, Calif. yesterday I couldn't resist stopping to take some photos of surfers. What a great vantage point! It is near the lighthouse on Cliff Dr. by the way. Here is an example.

In retrospect, I think I would have done better with a faster shutter speed. This is at 1/250, but I would have used 1/500 or faster to freeze the water better. Any C&C welcome.

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I agree on the shutter speed, I don't think 1/1000 would hurt if you had enough light. 1/250 is pretty much too slow for just about any sport unless you're panning or wanting some motion blur.

That being said though, it is a really nice capture of the surfer. A bit of a bump with curves would give your colours a tad more punch too.

Sweet shot. I have always wanted to try surfing.

Hi, if you cropped it then it is just a tiny bit too much. It is very hard to get a good surf pic without the sun but the shutter speed was your problem here, as most pros shoot at 1/1000 with iso100, thats with sun. Never shoot a surf pic under 1/1000. If you have no sun tweak your iso to suit 1/1000. Good shot though!!!

Cool shot!

It is a nice place though angle is quite steep. You must have cropped off a lot with 105mm as I usually use 500mm from roughly same place. Also why f16? Something like f5.6/f8 should be more than enough.

Here is mine with 500mm.

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you can get away with 1/800 no problem, 1/640... its a stretch. f/5.6-f/10 for vibrant colors, iso 100-200, bump up if you need too. dont crop super heavily, as a surfer, you want to know where they are going, what is being done, the size of the wave, etc. also, it helps to put things in the foreground sometimes

Thanks to all for your great suggestions. I learned a lot!

Summary of what I learned:

• Keep the shutter speed fast (safe to say 1/1000 or faster) for action sports like surfing.
  
• Use 100 ISO if possible. (It was and I didn't)
  
• Be careful about over-cropping so as not to hide the context of the surfer.
  
• Keep aperture down a bit for better color. (Hadn't heard that one before.)