So part of my sons sponsorship deal with armstrong/ WA surf is posting content.
Have a decent Cannon camera.

but the damn thing pauses at the wrong time when taking shots. Especially when he is moving quick on the foil.


any of you crew know anything about these cameras and what settings might work / lenses whatever?


tried sport setting of course - but that pauses badly when hes moving. I think the camera is trying to focus or something.

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eppo said..
So part of my sons sponsorship deal with armstrong/ WA surf is posting content.
Have a decent Cannon camera.

but the damn thing pauses at the wrong time when taking shots. Especially when he is moving quick on the foil.


any of you crew know anything about these cameras and what settings might work / lenses whatever?


tried sport setting of course - but that pauses badly when hes moving. I think the camera is trying to focus or something.

Sport setting will be opening up the aperture to allow a faster shutter speed, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will help with focus speed.

Have you tried setting the focus to manual, which of course will require you to manually focus the camera, but might stop the pause due to it trying to auto focus?

Camera model might help as different models certainly have different capabilities and one person's idea of what is a 'decent' camera can be very different to another's. Some high-end cameras have a continuous focus function, not just focusing when you press the shutter, so they can take the photo instantly.

Actually, one basic thing that you may or may not be already doing is making use of half-pressing the shutter button so that it does the auto-focus and exposure setting before you need to take the photo, then it will take the photo instantly when you fully press the shutter button. Of course you can't wait too long between the half-press and the full press if the subject it moving toward or away from you as they won't be in focus when you fully press the shutter.

There's a bunch of other techniques for sports photography, such as choosing the point where you are going to take the shot and pre-focusing there, or simply continuously adjusting the lens focus manually as the subject is moving toward or away from you.

Ah thanks harrow will try some of your ideas. appreciate it man. Whilst our cannon camera is decent i dont think it has the continuous focus thingy. Might try the manual focus thing first.

It Could well be you Lens
Most consumer lens are a little soft when zoomed in all the way.
Even the Canon L series lens have a reputation for this.
Just go a little wider of full zoom and see if that solves your issues.

I use a Panasonic G85 coz I mainly take video (would love a GH5) If I'm taking action photos I will leave it in "intelligent auto" and set it to multi shot mode. It takes so many pics per second that its hard not to end up with a few good shots at the right moment. That & a steady hand or preferably a tripod. Another method if your camera can take good video is capturing a still shot from video.

With mainly a panasonic vario 45 -175 lens and occasionally a 100 - 300 for places like Ulu's, Margs distance.

Don't forget that the great shot you saw in a surf magazine took 200 shots to get.

Okay took the camera in to the photography teacher. He changed.

1. set it to TV mode

2. changed the quality to Jpeg (we had it on "raw"


3. switched a setting to "servo" function which apparently focusses on moving objects.

4. changed it to continuous mode for the shutter


5. changed down the shutter speed to 1/800.
.. The card is like 7 years old. Said get a card with 80 or more megapixels per second so that shouls improve.

anyhow he kite foiled today and it worked a treat. No pausing at all. Quality seemed okay??











Just got to get a bigger lens now.

I suggest you buy a Canon camera they are better than the Cannon.

Remember most work is done post in photochop.
30 seconds work here:

What edit settings did you use hilly? So much better!,

Secret sauce

Unsharp mask
Camera raw filter

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eppo said..
So part of my sons sponsorship deal with armstrong/ WA surf is posting content.
Have a decent Cannon camera.

but the damn thing pauses at the wrong time when taking shots. Especially when he is moving quick on the foil.


any of you crew know anything about these cameras and what settings might work / lenses whatever?


tried sport setting of course - but that pauses badly when hes moving. I think the camera is trying to focus or something.

Sent you an email Eppo.