Can anyone give me any input about a good camera to use for surf photography (one that takes good action shots and is easy to house). Thanks for any contributions. Tom
are you talking in the water, from land, still pics or video?
still pics from both land and water hopefully
Stick with a Nikon. You can get an older F1 on e-bay for relatively cheap ($200.00) It’s in the lens where the good shots happen. I use a Nikkor-C 2.8 f=500 for most mediun range shot, you need a lens that collects lots of light in a low light situation, most good shots happen during the am or pm glass off. But it’s the lens where your going to spend some serious bucks, most good lenses in high power cost upwards of $1,000 to $2,500 or more. If you want to go digital the Nikon D-100 is about a good as it gets, but it’s about $1,300 for the body alone, then you still have to buy a lens. Look on e-bay for someones old Nikon set up, don’t be afraid of older gear, just make sure its been kept up well. you should get at least a 500mm lens. -Jay
If you’d like to get something cheap and easy that you can start going to shoot with, look for Nikonos, they are cheaper then any of the new rigs and already houses for water photography. I’ve included a link to the BH Photo Video site has them on sale. BH is a great place to start as they ahve EVERYTHING and solid information about them. The previous poster is right about the nikon f1, it’s a good camera if you are going to go with an older rig. Older rigs are usually made out of metal and contain more metal inards. The metal inards and casing hold up much better under extreme weather conditions. In cold conditions some of the plastic parts can freeze up in super cold temps. It’s also right about the lenses being the majority of the quality. Glass is what makes or breaks the photo. The advantage to going with Nikon is that they haven’t changed their mounts in over 40 years. So glass from 20 years ago will work on both new and old rigs, minus auto focus of course, which brings me to another point. You will NEED auto focus. Unless you plan on shooting at infinity all the time, which would be the case should you shoot on land only (Infinity is generally 16ft away and beyond), you’ll need to focus of course. This being said, you’ll obviously need a newer camera. My reccomendation is to buy a canon in this case. Over the last 10 years or so, since the advent of Autofocus, Canon glass has generally out shown Nikon’s glass. Read reviews in publications such as PDN and Shutterbug and the like. They have a large assortment of lenses, but are not backwards compatiable if you should buy an older canon. I don’t know your budget, but the new canon 10DS is 6.3 Mega Pixels with CMOS sensor which has much better light capture properties then the nikon mentioned above. I’ll spare the board the details. 6.3mp will be fine up to about 11 x 14 at which point you’ll begin to notice a drop off in quality. Unfortunately the 1DS, which is 11 mega pixels, is about 8grand, as compared to the 10DS which is about 1800. The problem you have to watch out for with digital cameras however is that the sensor is often not full frame size, so there is a conversion factor of anywhere from 1.4 on up. This means, that if the frame is smaller in size, say for the sake of argument 28mm as opposed to 35mm, a 24mm lense now becomes a 38mm (give or take), so you loose about 10 degrees of frame visibility and range. You’ll need to be wary of this and read carefully. A lot of surf photography is shot with a wide angle lense, often times with what is called a fish-eye. These lenses have about 210 degrees of visibility, so yes, they almost see behind you in a sense, which gives the impression of a circular or fish eye look. These lenses are very costly, upwards of 1000 dollars, but nothing compared to the long range lenses you’ll need for beach photography. 300mm will be ok if you’re shooting something within about 35yds. ABove that you’ll need something around 500 - 600mm. Tamron makes a 200 - 400 which would be a good start for around 750 dollars. The draw back is that it’s what they call a “Slower” lense. it only has an aperature of 5.6 at maximum. This is essentially the amount of light being allowed in. The 600mm L series lense from canon is a 2.8 which is 4 times as much light allowance then the Tamron, however it costs about 6000 dollars. Surf photography will not be a cheap experience if you want to REALLY get into it. The extreme conditions require serious photographic equipment. My reccomendation is to evaluate what you want to do and what your budget is. My thinking is that the Nikonos will probably be the cheapest and best bet. The one good thing is they have an AWESOME resale value. Their lenses are fantastic and will perform a variety of tasks on land and in the water. They are much easier to cary around then a 45lb 600mm lense and high end camera body, and as I said, much less costly. The only problem is shooting beach photography, which you can do with a cheap older rig from Nikon or Canon. Be sure to shoot on sunny days and you’ll not need the 2.8 and will do just fine with the 4.0 or 5.6 lenses. I’m sorry for the babble, but in case you can’t tell, I’m a photo student and avid photographer. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?A=search&ci=1&shs=NIN5GR&Q=&O=
thanks for all that information. all that stuff is really interesting and helpful. It seems like i am not exactly rich enough to get into surf photography at this point, but i really love the art. I repect your knowledge in the area. Thanks for all the info again. I might just try and take some beach break photos with my uncles old cannon. Thanks for your help again
Honestly, don’t let cost push you away. Where there is a will there is a way. People make livings off using cardboard cameras. My advice would be to honestly pick up some of the disposable waterproof cameras and go screw around. Get a feel for what it takes to shoot. Then move up from there. A lot of the work i’ve shot has been on a 12 dollar Plastic camera. It’s not even using a glass lens, the lens is plastic and the body leaks all over the place. But I learn it’s flaws and use them to my advantage. You can and should definitely do the same. Go out with the disposable, shoot a few rolls, figure out what types of shots work and don’t work. What types of lighting work and don’t work. And go from there. Don’t be scared to mess around, it’s worth it. When in doubt do as Jackson Pollock said, “I don’t believe in accidents, because I deny the accident ever happened.”
That is more good advice. Thanks again.
First off, Tom…listen to Christian (that was a great post, bro…right on the money). Can’t add much info to that which is already quite sound, but…if you want something reliable (and relatively cheap -like 150 bucks) there’s a cannon ELPH sports model for in the water shots. Not like a good six hundred lens from the beach, but unless you know how to bargain hunt for the right equipment you’re gonna sink a bundle (or maybe lose a bundle). as with cars, if you don’t know what the camera’s been through you could inherit a lot of technical problems. READ UP! There are a lot of good deals out there if you know what to look for. A lot of people are ditching their fine film cameras for digital…this is when to swoop down. Christian is right about “Glass”, too. A good quality lens is the ticket. If you buy a used housing, you’ve REALLY got to check it for leaks…the consequences are obvious. You’d be surprised at the great shots you can get from a “cheapie” waterproof camera…but if this is for serious shots or potential publication desires - there aren’t any substitutes for the RIGHT equipment for the job. T.
I bought a Nikon Action Touch on ebay about 4 years ago and am thrilled. They dont make them anymore, but it’s an awesome point & shoot 35mm. Alot smaller & simpler than a Nikonos Aaron Chang uses one in a pinch. It’s good as an everyday camera too. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2950442932&category=3332 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2950442932&category=3332
See what I’m saying, Nikon, no Canon. It’s like my Chevy can beat your Ford. You can get a older Nikon body, all the Nikon lenses will fit on it, get a tripod and go take some pictures. You can pick up a camera body for next to nothing. But you will spend on the lens. The post above was right Tamaron lenses are very good too. If your doing water shots, I’d recommend just swimming in the impact zone without a camera. Get use to dodging boards and going over the falls, then get a cheapo Fuji water proof throw away camera It’s a lot hairier than you would think, especially when it gets way overhead. Buy a helmet too, it will get some use. -Jay
try keh.com for great used camera deals. we have found a couple nice minolta water cameras at yardsales CHEAP one has built in zoom
Christian, are there any reliable digital underwater cameras for relatively cheap. I’m really liking the idea of the Nikonos V like you said, but it is still a little expensive. Tom
I’ll have to look, but I don’t think there is really a “Waterproof” digital camera out. What a lot of people do make is housings for the cameras. I’ve seem them for sony’s, as a matter of fact a link posted above has one for a sony digital. I’ve got to take care of a few things tonight, but will surely look when I get back. It would be nice if you could find one for a cool pix or any 5megapixel camera. 5mp’s will do ya fine for most things. The Lecia Digilux digital camera is about 600 bucks BUT has amazing glass. Leica is arguably the best lense maker out, right up there with zeiss. As a previous poster (Sorry i can’t see the posts as I’m typing) mentioned, you can probably get an old nikon for cheap and buy an older manual focus lens and be done with it for beach photography. And try not to get TOO caught up in the debate between Nikon and Canon. It can go on for hours and is very much the ford vs. chevy issue in the photographic world. I know people who swear by both and would change to the other in a heart beat if they didn’t have to convert so much. But either way, good deals to be had. Older pentaxs too, K1000 is a GREAT old school camera and the pentax mounts, not the screw mounts, haven’t changed either. And here is another plus with Pentax. As you jump up in formats, if you take it that far, the Pentax 67 and 645 manual cameras use the same lens mounts as the 35mm cameras, so the lenses are interchangable through formats as well. Ahhh so much to talk about. I’ll look for housings later tonight and get back to you.
If you’re still looking, SeaLife makes a camera with a waterproof housing called the Reefmaster. It comes in 35mm and digital versions. I just checked and as of 9/14/03, there are currently some of the 35mm ones available for $99 (about half price) at a remainder/discount source called SierraTradingPost.com (hey Mike, is it okay to list a commerical site?). I read a review in a diving magazine which gave the reefmaster a pretty good rating. Wouldn’t give you the variability of a Nikonos, you can’t change the lenses, but would proably work really well for starting out. Have fun. WetSand has a great gallery for inspiration (David Pu’u et. al.)