I've been traveling in Hawaii and spent a day shooting surfers on Maui's north shore with my 300 mm lens. I thought you might appreciate this series of shots of a lovely surfer girl at the top of her game.
Here's a teaser:
And here's the link to the series of 10 shots showing her whole run:
Surfer Girl Series
I would appreciate comments and critiques. Mahalo!
Wow, Apple iPhone with a 300mm lens. I have to get one of those. But seriously, those are great photographs. I am also rather interested in your vantage point.
Great vantage point especially for pics 04-05. Shows the momentum and defiance of gravity during her cutback on the wave, from that angle. I've taken many surf shots but not as good as the gem that is pic 04! Great capture(s). Well done.
Thanks for sharing. I like the numbers 6 - 10. The waves look big and I like the curve of the wave in the latter shots. Nice blue water and nice girl, too.
Beats my 1st surfer shots on the Atlantic coast last October. There were four 10 - 14 year old guys in wetsuits, just learning. I used my 70-200 VR lens with a Polarizer. Unfortunately it was more backlit with bright sun. What ISO/Speed/Aperture did you use and trpod I assume? Looked like a lot of sun? Any info is helpful if I ever get an opportunity to shoot some more surfers.
Thanks for the kind words everyone and the comments.
@ Mick I was shooting from a cliff about 100 feet above the water and maybe 200 feet from the surfers. So the angle was down about 30 degrees and the sun was on my left sholder.
@ 3DsArcher I had a special mount built so I could attach the 300 mm to my iPhone. Seriously, I was using my D3 at 9 frames a second with my 70-300 mm zoom. It's a little soft at 300 so I was at about 270 for these shots.
@ bcenu & GiorgioBaruffi Thanks for the kind words. It took me about 4 hours to fill 2 8-Gig cards with about 900 pictures. It was a "target rich environment" as they say. I have lots of neat series but this is the one I liked best. I'll put some more up on Smugmug at some point, possibly some windsurfers and some scuba diving shots.
@ justamistere The waves were between 10 and 16 feet ... so not that huge but almost three times the surfers' height at their tallest. I was shooting handheld at ISO 500, f/11, aperture priority which yields shutter speeds of about 1/1000. F/11 seems to be the sweet spot for my camera and 1/1000 was fast enough to stop water droplets and motion of the surfer.
Interesting angle indeed. Maybe from the rock jetty at Haleiwa? Anway pretty neat series.
Actually these were from a cliff over Honolua Bay on the northwest tip of Maui. I have seen pictures of surfers riding 60 foot waves here ... but sadly, not this week.
Well, well you are having fun aren't you...thanks for sending me the thread...I like #7 the best...it is true form. Her body language just speaks...great shots...I assume the shots are from your hotel balcony???
@ trevytrev Sorry, I'll work on it. Funny, there were 99 guys for every girl surfing that day. Almost everyone was wearing wetsuits ... except her. She attracted quite a lot of attention ... presumably for her surfing skills and - ah hem - other assets.
You got love Maui huh? I was there two months ago, and its just beautiful. Nice shots, I tried once but didn't have the right lens, and now I that I have it, I had to send my camera for service =(.
