A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Woahs
GoPro Tips for Surfing
No video camera screams adventure quite like a GoPro. With their explosive entry into the market in recent years, capturing those perfect moments while surfing has never been easier. But with a variety of settings, accessories and ways to shoot, how do you ensure that you get the best shot? Lucky for you, we have some GoPro tips for surfing to help you get the very best out of your adventures.
Camera Clarity
One of the most common complaints from people about their GoPro is that the waterproof housing fogs up, resulting in blurry images. To solve this problem, we need to understand what makes the fogging happen. As you begin to use your GoPro, the sun heats the housing causing it to be warmer than the air within it, making the moisture inside stick. Because the waterproof housing on the camera is airtight, the air trapped inside will maintain the same temperature as when it was first sealed. A way that you can avoid this fogging is by letting your GoPro sit outside for a few minutes before you put it in the housing to ensure that the internal temperature is as close to the outer temperature as possible to minimize fogging. In addition to fog from moisture, the housing can appear fogged if sunscreen gets smeared on the outside of the housing, so another good tip is to make sure you have your rig completely set up before you apply sunscreen so you don’t accidentally get any on the outside of the housing.
Securing Your GoPro
While GoPro offers a lot of different options for experimenting with your shots, one of the more common ones for surfing is GoPro’s standard Surf Mount. Although it seems like this is an ideal way to capture great surfing moments, many users worry about the potential for the camera to fall out of the mount and become lost in the surf. Thankfully, GoPro has found a solution for this with their Floaty Backdoor, a bright orange failsafe device that attaches to the back of the camera’s waterproof housing, keeping your GoPro afloat in the event that your camera comes off of your mount. In addition to keeping it afloat, the bright orange color makes it much easier to see if you’re scouring the ocean for your camera.
Shooting Photos
GoPro has a wide variety of settings, making it difficult to decide what setting to use and when. Thankfully, award-winning surf photographer Robbie Crawford gives us some insight on his blog. For him, the two main aspects to consider when deciding what mode to shoot in are your wave size and how many images you want to capture per second. For the single shot mode, Robbie recommends that you really only use it when you’re shooting something that is standing still, like a picture of the beach or a sunset. While he rarely uses Burst Modes 3/1 sec through 10/2 sec, Robbie suggests that you use Burst Mode 30/1 sec when shooting waves that are 1-6 feet in size, Burst Mode 30/2 sec when shooting waves that are 6-10 feet high, and Burst Mode 30/3 sec for when the wave is 10 feet or higher. Mess around with these settings to find the optimum settings for you to capture your wave at exactly the right moment.
Shooting Video
In addition to a guide on photos, Robbie also has a section on his blog about shooting optimal video with a GoPro l. Instead of basing the decision off of wave height as you would with a photo, the main considerations when selecting a video mode are 1) how much you want to slow down the video after the fact, and 2) your desires for how high in quality of your video. When shooting videos for Instagram, Robbie uses WVGA 240fps as it really allows you to do a lot of heavy slow motion and looks great on mobile devices. For shooting video that’s going to be viewed more often than not on a desktop environment, 720p-120fps is the way to go. It will look great on YouTube, and you can still slow it down about 15% if you would like to do so. While somewhat of a niche setting, 2.7k- 30fps is what Robbie uses when he needs to crop something or make a portion of the video zoomed in. Oftentimes, the 1080p-60fps setting is exactly what you want while still offering some potential to add slow motion.
Get Creative!
One of the greatest things about a GoPro is that you can get some incredible shots that you’d never expect to get. Tired of your regular surf mount? GoPro offers a variety of other mounts, including a head mount, a wrist mount and even one that you can strap to your chest. Alternatively, you can get a GoPro stick to hold while you’re shredding. Shoot from new angles and get great footage of your friends, family or the endless beauty that Costa Rica has to offer. Be confident, get creative and switch things up!