There are two key factors in taking good action photos the first is preparation and the second and more important is luck. The attached pictures were taken at a surfer-infested beach in Southern California. To prepare I spent some time watching the surfers to be able to anticipate where they would be heading and at what point in time they were likely to perform tricks.

Since the surfers were a couple hundred yards offshore a 75-300 mm zoom lens was used on a Canon Digital Rebel with a lens magnification of 1.6x. These pictures were taken with the lens fully zoomed to the equivalent of 480 mm.

It is usually necessary to take large number of photographs to get a couple of good action shots since all the photographer can do is anticipate what they believe will be a good shoot and hope to get lucky. This is a case where digital cameras come in handy, it would be expensive to shoot and develop a couple of rolls of film in the hope of getting one or two good pictures. About two dozen pictures were taken of the surfers of which three turned out to good enough to be presented below.

In the image above, the problem in the image above is that the subject (the surfer) didn't cooperate. The surfer was kept in the frame and the picture was taken as the surfer reached the peak of the wave which is where a trick would usually be performed. Rather than performing a trick the surfer kicked out and the result was a nice picture of his back.

The photo above is a little better than the first picture. The subject was kept in frame (this is not as easy as it sounds and will take some practice) and again was photographed as he reached the peak of the wave. This time the surfer continued to ride the wave and is horizontal to the water which makes the picture more interesting than the first picture. The two main issues with this picture are that the surfer's back is still to the camera and that another surfer was caught in the foreground. While the surfer in the foreground could be cropped out the resulting picture would not be good enough to warrant the use of time.

After about 15 shots my luck was beginning to change, in the picture above, the surfer was facing the camera and was captured in mid air which adds to the action and feeling of the picture. Unfortunately there were still a number of bad breaks. First, the picture is a bit fuzzy which may be due to the water spray in front of the surfer or may be a result of the picture being slightly out of focus. Also, the surfer was further off shore in this picture than in some of the other and therefore is smaller there are also five other surfers in the picture. Cropping the picture can help resolve the size of the surfer and remove the other surfers but will emphasize the fuzziness. Also, there is a sailboat over the surfers right shoulder, it is far outing the distance but can be seen and may be distracting.

Finally, the photography gods cooperate and in this picture everything comes together at once, the surfer was kept within the frame and was facing the camera, no other surfers are visible and the wave was breaking all around the surfer as the picture is taken. Even the spay of water behind the surfer frames him nicely.