Photo Help

Printing Service  Most professional photographers use an established host to sell their photos.  We use SmugMug.com which hosts copies of our photos and videos, processes orders, handles secure credit card charges, and prints the photos through Bay Photo in Santa Cruz. 

Printing v. Downloading  Smugmug is a convenient and reliable source of high quality prints. If you prefer, you can download the original digital file and have the image processed by another service or print it at home.

When Are Photos Posted?  Because these are large files, it takes several hours to upload them to the host. We generally upload in the afternoon so all the photos should be available late that evening or the following morning.

Image Size and Resolution Photo resolution is often expressed in dots per inch (dpi) although pixels per inch (ppi) is technically correct. What’s confusing is that pixels per inch varies with the size of prints made from the same camera. Our 18 megapixel Canon 7D creates JPEG images which are 6-7 megabytes in size and 9-10 MB after processing with Photoshop.  In the camera, these images are 72" by 48" at 72 ppi which is roughly the resolution of a computer monitor. Imagine your photo displayed on a monitor which is about 6 feet wide and 4 feet tall; that’s what we start with.  Now if you take that low res image and shrink it without re-sampling, the same number of pixels are compressed into a smaller area.  So a 12 X 8 print is 438 ppi and a 24 X 16 is 216 ppi.  Most pros consider 200 ppi close to film quality but a lot depends on the subject matter.

Aspect Ratio When you add an image to your shopping cart, you’ll see that you can choose a variety of different dimensions. The preview also shows you how the image will be cropped and allows you to make adjustments. Many digital cameras (including ours) result in an aspect ratio of 3:2 and less cropping will occur if you choose prints with the same ratio. This includes 4 X 6, 6 X 9, 8 X 12, etc. However, since many frames come in common sizes like 8 X 10 or 11 X 14 these dimensions may be more convenient. As described previously, the larger the print, the lower the resolution.

All Photos Are Not Created Equal Surfing photography in Northern California is often frustrating. We are resigned to clear summer days with no surf and epic swells on foggy, dreary days. And distance from the subject is an important factor. Photos from Mavericks or big Ocean Beach are seldom as crisp as those taken from the cliff at Steamer Lane. One is simply trying to shoot through more mist and particulates in the air. We delete photos that are clearly out of focus, poorly lit, or uncomplimentary (except for really interesting wipeouts). But if you’ve never had a photo of yourself on a big wave, even an imperfect image can be pretty exciting. When in doubt we upload the photo and let you decide.

Lighting Since the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, the best lighting is usually in the morning.  Right after sunrise, the angle of the sun illuminates the face of the wave and the surfer. In the afternoon, the waves are backlit and the surfer often appears as a silhouette.  This can be a pretty photo but usually less desirable when you can't identify who's on the wave.  To make matters worse, big swells occur in the fall and winter when the sun is lower in the sky and you're more often "shooting into the sun."  The photo on the left was taken just after sunrise while the photo on the right was taken in the afternoon.

If You Download an Image, Back it Up While JPEG images are the most common file format they have one major drawback-- they lose resolution every time they are modified and saved. If you plan to work with the image using Microsoft Photo Editor, Photoshop, Picasa or another program be sure back up the original. Another solution is to convert the file to a “non-decaying” format such as TIFF. If your file is lost or corrupted, email us and we’ll send you a new one. Most are saved in our archive for a year or two. The date and sequence number in the file name is very helpful.

Editing the Image If you look critically at a lot of surfing photos it’s pretty easy to tell the ones that have been heavily edited. Typically, the colors are a little too vivid, there are no shadows where one would expect, and the shot is a bit too “crisp.” We’ve been at the beach on gray days and seen photos from the same day that look like they were taken in Miami. “Less is more” seems like a good rule of thumb.

Using the Image With Other Applications When you work with downloaded images it’s easy to forget how big they are. Insert one of these into a website and you may only see the bottom corner of the shot. Some programs like Microsoft Word will automatically adjust the size of the photo to fit your page, but remember your one-page document is now 10MB in size. Attach a few of these files to an email and it will probably be rejected by the host. In Microsoft applications you can click once on the photo and choose the edit picture option from the format menu (or right-click your mouse). Most programs have an option to compress the photo which will dramatically reduce its size.

About the Camera Gear  We get a lot of questions from people interested in digital photography. For what it’s worth, here’s our two cents. In choosing a camera, you might consider (a) what you plan to shoot, (b) how the images will be used (e.g., website, snapshots, large prints), (c) whether you think you might want to upgrade in the future, and (d) your credit card limit.

The compact point-and-shoot cameras are fun, simple to use, easy to carry around, and good for most prints. Keep in mind that most of the images you see on the internet on 72ppi so it’s not like you need an expensive camera for your family website. A costlier SLR (single lens reflex) camera allows you to use different lenses and continue to use them if you upgrade the camera body. As such, an SLR provides maximum flexibility and the ability to expand your toolkit. You can buy a pretty good SLR body with a lens for under $1K.  A 12 megapixel camera shooting JPEG images will usually result in high quality prints unless you're printing poster size.

We use Canon gear and have owned the 10D, 20D, Rebel XTi, 40D and the 7D. Most of the “D” series cameras sell for about $1,300 when they are released and $900 a year later. It’s easy to find yourself chasing the latest model; sometimes a little patience pays off. The Rebel models are fine, just lighter duty. Especially for sports photography, the real money is in telephoto lenses. You can choose lenses from the original manufacturer (Canon, Nikon, etc.) or compatible products from another manufacturer at a lower cost. You should know that most of our photog friends started out with these second tier products and ended up buying the expensive stuff. Unfortunately, there is a big difference. We normally shoot with a Canon 300 f/2.8 for close work (e.g., Steamer Lane) and a 600 f/4.0 for places like Mavericks.  Most of the Canon lenses work with 1.4x and 2.0x extenders which increase the magnification of the lens but will reduce the sharpness of photos.  The 1.4 extender is handy but we can’t recommend the 2.0.

Contact Us

Inquiries regarding NorcalSurfPhotos.com or to contact the photographer (Bruce): Email: btopp@ pacbell.net  Phone: 415.269.2378