Surf's Up!!!

chuckinsocal

OK ... so we're not like Hawaii, Fiji, or Australia but it was a pretty good week end for surfing around these parts so I thought I'd put my brand new Nikkor 70-300 VR to a test. All and all, I'd say it did a pretty good job. Comments are welcome and appreciated.

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More can be seen here for those who might be interested.

Thanks for looking.

jonh68

They are nice for snapshots, but too far away to make for compelling or interesting sports shots.

chuckinsocal

Hi John,

You appear to be an accomplished sports photographer. I'm just some guy who lives near the beach testing out his new D80 and 70-300VR lens to see how well it does with the surfers. While I'm satisfied with how well the combo did under the circumstances, the surf in our area combined with my modest photographic skills and a 300mm lens will never make for compelling sports action shots and these were never meant to rise to that level.

Thanks for your comments.

jonh68

I can understand your excitement about your new purchase. If you get serious about shooting surfing events, more reach is going to be needed. The 70-300 vr is a fine lens and I hope you get some nice shots with it.

MJRPHOTO

jonh68 wrote:

They are nice for snapshots, but too far away to make for compelling or interesting sports shots.

John,
Explain to me why these are to far away?

Chuck,
These are pretty good for your first go at it. Yes more lens is required so that you will not need to crop so much. If you wanted to do any bigger prints it might be a problem. I just got a 600 mm last weekend and it still is not enough some times.
Here are some I took on 09.07.08

jonh68

John,
Explain to me why these are to far away?

These are nice shots to set the scene.

There are some great shots in the gallery that can stand some closer crops or tighter framing so we can see facial reaction of the surfers and the spray of the water. Yours are the same way.

They are nice for event photography, but they are not sport pictures in capturing action, face pics, and tight framing. There's too much dead space. I have been racked over the coals for this too, on this board and by my editors/colleagues. I have gotten better and I am still learning too.

chuckinsocal

Hi Guys,

These pics were taken at high tide and the waves were breaking fairly close to the beach so I expect that this is as good as I'll do with the 300 mm lens and some cropping to boot. I don't expect that I'll make it into any surf magazines but I have a little fun with it and if I become a fixture at this beach maybe I"ll sell a download or two (or not). Also, unless there's a major storm out at sea, our surf doesn't get much better than what you see here very often.

As for the cropping, I cropped so the viewer could get a sense of what the surfer was coming out of and what he was headed into. I also cropped to have the surfer surfing down into the frame in most cases.

My Oly 765UZ went to 380mm and with a 1.7 TC it went to about 650mm and even that was marginal in some cases. Those pics are the last six on page 3 and all of page 4 in this gallery.

So for me it's more about having fun than producing pro level shots and if I ever do get more serious I'll have to invest some pretty big bucks in some really long glass. In the mean time there's an awful lot to shoot around here that'll keep my busy enough.

Thanks again for your comments. They're all good.

jonh68

So for me it's more about having fun than producing pro level shots and if I ever do get more serious I'll have to invest some pretty big bucks in some really long glass. In the mean time there's an awful lot to shoot around here that'll keep my busy enough.

That's the thing though, you have a pro level smugmug account and the pics are available for purchase.

You don't need big bucks for reach. You spent around $300 on the 18-135 and around $500 for the 70-300. A bigma 50-500 can run you 1000 to 1100 new and 800-900 used. You were asking a month ago about how the 18-135 and 70-300 would be for surfing and general purpose photography. Most everybody who had done so said that combo would not be ideal for surfing.

This is called paying it twice which afflicts every camera user. Saving a little bit more you could have gotten a great lens for surfing. This isn't trying to beat you up.

chuckinsocal

John,

Thank you for not beating me up.

While shooting surfers is fun, it's not my primary interest. In fact, on many days the surf around here is such that it's not worth taking the camera out of the car.

I've had this lens on since Friday and here's what I've learned about it so far:

For surfers, just ok under prime circumstances so I'll have to do the best I can with it and settle for mediocrity by pro standards. But not everybody judges by pro standards.

For wildlife, I was just in my back yard trying to shoot some birds and found that I really need a longer lens for that as well unless I can get much closer. Again, fun to shoot but probably not a primary interest.

For a walk around lens, too long at the short end in too many circumstances but very effective where I'm far enough away to shoot at 70mm or more.

For field sports, pretty good but I've only tested it at some practices for reach and clarity so I don't have any "real" sports photos to post. Not sure sports photography will be a primary interest but I'll probably try it just to see.

While I really haven't defined my photographic niche yet, I tend towards scenic shots, candid shots, and other "things" of interest that define our SoCal life style.

My 18-135 is an awesome walk around lens except I had to send my copy back to B&H because I couldn't get an acceptably sharp image from it. I'll see how well the replacement does. All the reviews I've read have said it's a very sharp lens so hopefully I'll get a better copy this time.

The 70-300 has also proven to be an excellent lens and I'm sure I'll find good use for it. There's too many opportunities around here for longer shots.

As I said, even my 650mm including the TC was often marginal. I'll just have to find closer stuff to shoot.

Thanks again for not beating me up.