O'Neill Cold Water Classic surfing

Quzol1Quzol1 Registered Users Posts: 167 Major grins
edited October 28, 2010 in Sports
A few shots from O'Neill Cold Water Classic in Santa Cruz, California last week.


Riding the top of the wave
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Getting a Little Air
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Going Vertical!
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The way these guys can deify gravity is amazing. When you are on the beach watching you don't get a real sense of what they are doing ,since it happens so fast.
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The amount of LARGE white lens's at an event like this is astonishing.
Don Albonico, SerriaPhoto.com

Comments

  • RedFish71`RedFish71` Registered Users Posts: 58 Big grins
    edited October 26, 2010
    i'm looking at these on my laptop so i could be wrong, but they seem to lack the pop i normally see in surfing pics. i really like the compo of the last one and some S/H might bring out even more detail.
    Harold Davis


    http://redfishphotography.net
  • toragstorags Registered Users Posts: 4,615 Major grins
    edited October 26, 2010
    No pop?... My guess is it was very foggy.

    That's the bad news. The good news is you can see the fronts of the surfers, which is difficult in the usual back lit conditions.

    I missed it this year... damn

    Nice snaps

    Rags
    Rags
  • Quzol1Quzol1 Registered Users Posts: 167 Major grins
    edited October 26, 2010
    This would be the perfect place for some nice morning light to get the front of the surfers lit. But this being Santa Cruz, fog or heavy overcast is the most likely outcome. As the day progresses, as torgas states we move into a heavy backlit situation. The light is the limiting factor here as if it's not everywhere! Hum... wonder if one of those big trailer mounted spot lights would work for a REALLY big flasheek7.gif
    Don Albonico, SerriaPhoto.com
  • RedFish71`RedFish71` Registered Users Posts: 58 Big grins
    edited October 27, 2010
    hey don, dont laugh. there was a guy down here in FL that made his own ring light flash. he showed up to a nature preserve with his gear....that included a car battery!!! when the flash fired, the birds would just fall out of the trees!!! i was the most serious light ever seen coming from a camera's flash. i have no clue if it still works.

    hope i didnt offend in my OP. i think you did a fantastic job, especially if it were foggy!!!!!
    Harold Davis


    http://redfishphotography.net
  • ZerodogZerodog Registered Users Posts: 1,480 Major grins
    edited October 28, 2010
    To me these are all wicked under exposed. It looks that matrix metering was used averaging the entire exposure. So the water behind is balanced. This is where the under exposure is coming from. If the surfer is exposed correctly the water behind, in the background, will be totally blown out. And in the end, who cares. Most likely your histogram looks great for these too. This fakes you out for this type of shot.

    For any action shots I like spot metering or even just manual exposure tuned for the situation. Manual works great if the light and angle to the light does not change. Either way the subject is exposed correctly over anything else in the scene. Because the subject is important, not the background.

    These could be tweaked in PP to be a bit better and give some more pop. If it were me, in LR, I would up the exposure a bit, add fill light, crank the black point until you start seeing black clipping and for the water use the recovery slider & highlight slider to get it to pop. Adjust the WB so the water looks white and the skin is natural looking. Crank the vibrance up a bit and even add some saturation. Then in the end mess with the brightness and contrast sliders to see if you can add even more bang to it.
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