Saturday morning started off with a quiet breakfast in Downtown Huntington Beach (the La Luna cafe - now called Cafe Enchanté - is wonderful!)

With enough fuel in the tank to walk around on a beautiful October morning I walked through the still sleepy streets and ended up at the pier. My "mission" that morning was to spend some time photographing subjects I have never shot before and the many surfers in the water seemed to be willing subjects.

Here are three of the many photographs I took that morning. I know next to nothing about surfing and really enjoyed just watching them perform their rituals. All three of them seemed very adept.

The girl... exuding grace and elegance:



The older gentleman... an old hand at this? His energy and dexterity at his age shames me.



And the "Rockstar"... much like a musician hamming it up on stage for a photographer.




All shot with my *ist DL and DA 50-200mm at f/16.

Your critiques and comments are requested and appreciated! Tips on photographing surfers would be very useful. The DA 50-200mm is the longest lens I own as I typically favor shooting wide.
Thanks for looking!




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http://flickr.com/photos/nihil

[Photo Tramp]

All great shots. I like the B&W but would love to see the origionals of these.
Good Shooting.
Cheers: David

[Arpe]

I really like that first one, just about all white water.

[Nixarma]

Thank you for your comments!

[Bob Wallace]

You did a great job of 'catching the moment' on the first two. I think snapping just a bit earlier would have been better for the third. You might have caught him on the down slope.

Question on the first image - the girl. She really stands out from the background wave, a bit too much for my taste. Wonder what would happen if you were to decrease the overall contrast in the shot - maintain the white but tone down the black?

[Nixarma]

That's an interesting observation, Bob. I'll try what you have suggested and post the results.

I wonder if her "standing out" is because she's ahead of the wave and the inherent contrast between the black of her wet suit and the white of the spray.

Is there a particular part of her in the image that bothers you?

Thanks for your comments!
N.

[roscot]

Nice job. I like the black and white. I would not have thought of doing that for surfing pics.
Keep up the good work
Alan

[Bob Wallace]

I wonder if her "standing out" is because she's ahead of the wave and the inherent contrast between the black of her wet suit and the white of the spray.

Is there a particular part of her in the image that bothers you?

I think that's the exact reason, the high contrast between the very black suit and the white water. Her right arm in particular has somewhat a 'cut and pasted on' look to me. And that extends from there to more of her upper body.

Looking closely I'm wondering if there isn't a slight sharpening halo that might be causing me to see your image this way. (I could also be hallucinating as well. ;o)

Try a version where you take the blur tool, set the brush size very small, and slightly soften the suit/water edge.

I don't know if there's anything "wrong" with the way this image is processed. It just looks different than what I would expect from a film B&W. Some people might prefer it more in its current state.

It's a good job of framing, good position and expression in your subject, and you took the shot in a manner which presents a lot more power/turbulence than I suspect the waves actually provided (based on the other shots).

I'm nitpicking in my criticism.

[Nixarma]

I think that's the exact reason, the high contrast between the very black suit and the white water. Her right arm in particular has somewhat a 'cut and pasted on' look to me. And that extends from there to more of her upper body.

Looking closely I'm wondering if there isn't a slight sharpening halo that might be causing me to see your image this way. (I could also be hallucinating as well. ;o)

Try a version where you take the blur tool, set the brush size very small, and slightly soften the suit/water edge.

I don't know if there's anything "wrong" with the way this image is processed. It just looks different than what I would expect from a film B&W. Some people might prefer it more in its current state.

It's a good job of framing, good position and expression in your subject, and you took the shot in a manner which presents a lot more power/turbulence than I suspect the waves actually provided (based on the other shots).

I'm nitpicking in my criticism.

Bob, your comments and criticism are very valuable and are very much appreciated!

I was a little busy with work yesterday and will be till later today but I will try implementing your suggestions. I know what you mean about the boundary between her wetsuit and the whites from the spray... it looks like there is some kind of aliasing going on.

I remember noticing it in the JPG from the camera (I should have shot in RAW perhaps.) Let me see if the blur tool helps alleviate that effect a bit.

Thanks again!

[kjask]

great shots! congratulations!
I just find the second and the third a little bit too sharpened.. I said a little..
bravo!

[Nixarma]

kjask: Thanks for your comments! I'm going to try and sharpen these images in a more transparent fashion. I should have paid more attention to those details.

Bob: I went home for lunch cos I wanted to try what we were talking about earlier.

One curious thing I notice is that the "edge" effects that we see in the photograph above are particularly offensive while viewing the image at certain zoom percentages.

At 25%, 50% and 100% the boundaries between suit and water appear much smoother.

At 33% and 66.67% they're harsh.

I then tried saving the .psd "for the web" as a jpg with 100% optimization and the same artifacts are still present.

I would be happy to email the original image to you (and anybody else) if you'd like to take a closer look. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[roentarre]

the 2nd photo is geat fun. Amusing to see the photo. Got a great balance there