Old School G-Land, Java

Here’s a shot from G-Land in 2004.  I was staying at Bobby’s camp (I always stay there) in the huts that used to be up near the beach.  I got some great waves on this trip and shot quite a bit as well. I took this photo from a bodyboard with my ‘new Canon 10D’! So funny!  I was using a custom built housing by that guy in Newcastle, Australia (I can’t remember Dave’s last name right now or I would give him a plug).  I still have that housing, but the 10D is long gone.

Just so you all know…For awhile now I have been shooting Weddings and Portraits in Los Angeles and have freshened up my look a bit.  I added a new logo, which will eventually change on my DaveCollyer.com site. The whole story can be found on my new blog!  What?  A new blog?  Yep.  This new blog will cover some of the other work I am doing so that you don’t have to suffer though wedding photos and the like- ha ha!  I will still be writing about surf and taking surf photos as much as possible, but I gotta pay the bills too and surf photography can be a starving artist endeavor.  To say again, SickShots is alive and well and I will continue to take shots and write about surf.  In fact, I also have decided to start writing about surf photography itself because I get so many emails about it.  I will try to include lessons and the so called ’secrets’ that I have learned over the years every now and then. So here goes my first Surf Photography 101 class…

Surf Photography 101:
So what is wrong with this photo?  Look closely at the left side of the photo where the white water is breaking.  That is one overexposed nasty white area that ruins this shot in my opinion.  Too bad because it was a nice moment and I got drilled taking this photo! Back then one had to actually adjust the 10D down a stop to get the right exposure when using TV mode.  Now it seems they have it sorted out, but it can still happen.  Yes, I mentioned TV mode, which is also known as ‘Shutter Priority’.  In other words you set the shutter (to say something like 1/1000 to freeze the action) and the aperture ‘floats’ (i.e. 5.6 or 6.3) and is determined to get a ‘proper’ exposure.

In this case it didn’t work, which is another reason you should be using Manual settings all the time!  If you are using ‘P’ or program mode (No, that does not mean ‘Professional’ mode!) then you are getting some bad exposures, especially when shooting surf!  The camera will often ‘blow out’ the white water (notice there is absolutely no detail in the ‘whites’) trying to guess the right exposure by using the rest of the photo (which is dark) when determining the shutter and aperture (or one or the other depending on the mode, TV or AV, respectively).

Hope this makes some sense to you.  If not, go read your manual.  Really, read it.  There’s some good stuff in there.  I was reluctant to read my flash manual when I got some of the best advice ever from Vince Cavataio.  He said, “Put your manual in the bathroom and read it when you have some ‘down time’.  Brilliant!  More advice?  Yes, start using Manual mode all the time.  If you shoot in RAW you can save most photos that are over or underexposed by as much as 3 stops!  Have fun and go take some shots.