Sizzling summer
Summer is the perfect canvas for exceptional nature photography, with its long, lazy days, migratory birds, beautiful sunsets and lush green fields and gardens.
As the season is synonymous with beach time, it’s my moment to photograph the surfers, kite surfers and windsurfers racing the wave crests along our long coastline. Yes, you can find these athletes all year long playing in the waves, but summer gives you generally good weather and long days to capture the action. Pre-pandemic, I kept a close eye on the surf calendar to see when and where the world’s top surfers would be competing in South Africa, and I hope they will be returning to our shores soon.
To capture these incredible acrobats, you will need a long focal reach. It’s best to stay out of direct ocean spray, so the longer the lens, the better. A shutter speed of 1/2000s will freeze the action and produce a beautiful water splash. I set a medium depth of field between F/9 and F/11 to keep the images sharp with the surfer and board all in focus. Set the ISO to the light available or fall back to automatic ISO option.
