Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Back in Paradise

Not very impressed with the Olympus camera. Can't see the LCD screen in bright sun, so each photo is a guess out on the water. I think a range finder style camera would be better. How are others dealing with this camera?

The wife, before

After, ouch


















She dodges one















Wrong way



























































I often tell people at the office I don't need to go anywhere on vacation because I live in paradise. The water may have turned cold, but it still feels like paradise to me.

5 comments:

PakTeh said...

wow amazing! who said that olympus can't snap great photos :) greetings from malaysia.

NC Paddle Surfer said...

Hey thanks, it does shoot nice photos. It took 50 shots to get 10 good ones though. There are some digital cameras out there with LCD screens and view finders. I wish this was one of those.

srfnff said...

NC
I agree with pak teh, I don't think the shots you posted are bad at all. To fine tune them a bit you could try something like PhotoShop or a version of PhotoShop lite (Elements), or an online program called Picassa that will do all kinds of things, and it's free.

I've got the Olympus 790SW and I'm learning how to use it on a daily basis. All the watershots on my blog are with the Oly. It's not perfect by any means but of the two point and shoot (no external housing needed) waterproof cameras available (the other being the Pentax Optio) the Oly is the best buy overall, primarily because of it's durability. (My opinion after researching both cameras.)

I know what you mean about the screen glare, but I've also found that "point and shoot" is the true meaning of the phrase when taking action surf shots out in the water. Bobbing up and down on my SUP while trying to take pics is a challenge, I usually just worry about getting the surfer in the frame period, and not "framing" the surfer. Really I'm just taking snapshots while surfing, mainly for posting on my blog, and to give (via email) to the people I shoot. If I really wanted to focus on the pics I'd be out there without a board and with swim fins only.

Check out the Daily Bread blog at http://dalybread.blogspot.com/ Jason (aka Kaiser 1) takes some outrageously high quality shots with his Olympus 770SW. He is also putting together a group of amateur surf shooters for an online photo exhibit...no pros allowed. There's a link on his blog where you can contact him directly to participate. I urge you to do so and proudly rep the NC SUP community!;-)

Ponobill said...

The trick with the Olympus 770 is to practice a little bit with it like you would a shotgun, literally point and shoot. If you just point it quickly at something, without using the viewfinder, then look at the viewfinder you'll see you usually have the object of your interest dead center in the reticle which means the autofocus will take care of the rest.

To reinforce this, I take the pictures where I could use the LCD screen in the same manner--point and shoot, then see how I did. I'm not talking weeks of practice, I'm talking a few minutes to convince yourself that it will work.

I really bought my 770SW to use as a video camera, but I'm finding it's a great tool for good sport shots. I leave the Nikon in Diane's hands these days. She's better at fussing with all those controls anyway.

I'll have to see if I can recruit Jason to contribute photos to my new online magazine--Ke Nalu. You guys too. It's just a fancy blog with a lot of contributors.

PonoBill
(Yeah, I know it says PeyoteBill, I started a race car blog on Blogger long ago, and it's handy to let it just log me in)

NC Paddle Surfer said...

Thanks for the tips guys. I e-mailed Jason. Bill, I will practice your point and shoot technique. I'm happy to send photos anytime. Already bookmarked your new mag web site. It looks nice.