There’s no reason to not start your surf photography career shooting print film with one of them antique film SLRs. That’s right, them funny ones with no screen on the back. Benefits being: a) a top-notch 2nd hand film body is cheap as chips compared to a top end digi (£150 for an EOS3), b) you can actually show your prints to your mates and c) you don’t need to drop the cashola for a computer/memory cards/hard drives to get going.
Also if you are buying into one of the main camera systems (I’m a Canon fan-boy but I will limit equipment discussions to the two main providers namely the C boys and them Nikon fellas) then the lenses are compatible with modern bodies (unless you go way back and buy a manual focus SLR, not that there’s anything wrong with that- the Canon T90 is a beautiful camera even now and would make a great water camera).
Shooting film is worth doing so you understand where we came from. When every frame you shoot costs money it makes you think about the shot, rather than letting fly with the digi and hoping something comes out. Here’s the thing- you make the image, it’s your composition and idea that’s doing the work here- the body is just a tool be it a 2nd hand £50 Canon AE1 manual wind/focus body or a top of the line £5000 Nikon D3X.
It’s a given that most people reading this will however be shooting digital. Why buy a cassette player when you can buy an iPod right? So I won’t labour the point that film still has value- even though medium format film cameras are so cheap second hand these days and many surf photogs are shooting with Holgas.
Anyhoose digital bodies record images on light sensitive sensors not silver halide crystals so here’s a quick round up for newbie’s on them fancy sensors. Full frame (FF) sensors are just that- they are the equivalent of 35mm film having an image producing area of 36mm x 24mm. As they are larger the sensors are more expensive to manufacture and hence only feature in high-end cameras but also produce the best quality images. Pick up a 2nd hand Canon 5D for £800 and you’d be a very happy camper. Next up are the 1.3x crop factor sensors as featured in Canon’s 1 series sports range. The sensor is smaller and closer to the lens hence giving an effective magnification of 1.3x compared to full frame- in other words a 100mm lens on a 1.3x body will actually act like a 130mm on a full frame. Following on from this logic on Nikon’s 1.5x bodies and Canon’s mid/low range cameras 1.6x sensors (22mm x 15mm) the same 100mm lens will behave as a 150mm/160mm lens.
This has one major pro and major con. At the long lens end- say your shooting action from the beach then the crop factor is like an built in tele-convertor increasing your reach as a 500mm is now a 500 x 1.6=800mm. A 300mm a 480mm etc which means one important fact- you don’t really need a super-duper expensive 600mm lens anymore- unless you shoot somewhere that breaks a million miles out to sea. The con comes at the other end- the wide end. As your wide-angle fish eye lens (the industry standard for water shots) is now cropped and acts like a 24mm lens losing it’s oh so useful 180˚ diagonal field of view. Nikon have got round this by bringing out a 10mm lens that acts like a 15mm would on a full frame, Canon users are still cursing. But I digress…
So if you are going down the digital road it all depends on your budget- at the low end there cameras like the Canon 1000D and Nikon D3000 around the £350 mark. Mid level there’s the Canon 7D and Nikon D300s coming in at £1200 (also shoot insane vid) and if you’re a recent lottery winner or daddy has deep pockets then the Canon 1DMk4 or Nikon D3X are your boys coming in at ‘more than decent car’ price of £4500+. Entry and mid level cameras are all crop sensors and this makes perfect sense for beginners. It means the kit 300mm zoom lens puts decent action shots within reach. I’d strongly advise newbie’s getting a kit with a short zoom and long zoom included as it means you haven’t got to outlay heaps more cash on glass. If you persist then better glass will be in your future, this photog thing ain’t cheap if you really get serious and I’ll be looking at lenses in the next post in the series.
