Vans U.S. Open of Surfing
As soon as I heard the Vans U.S. Open of Surfing was underway in Huntington Beach, I grabbed my gear and headed out for an opportunity to capture some cool action shots of athletes doing their thing in the world of BMX, Skate, and Surf. You couldn't ask for a better venue. Vans set up an impressive pop-up store, skate park, grandstands, and activity booths for people of all ages to enjoy the event. Even more amazing was to find Steve Van Doren behind the grill where Vans was serving up free hotdogs and hamburgers to everyone in attendance.
I ventured out with my camera and a couple of lenses (55mm prime and 70-200mm telephoto) so I could capture a variety of images. I ended up using the 70-200mm the most since I prefer to get up close and personal for these type of shots. Since I didn't have a longer lens with me (e.g., 100-400mm or 200-600mm) to get some shots of the surfers in action from the beach, I had to walk down the pier to get closer to them. Of course, every other person had the same idea so it was a little challenging to find a good spot. It felt like I was a member of the Paparazzi. Nonetheless, I was able to capture a few images of surfers catching some waves before I decided to head back to the beach to get some shots of athletes waiting for their turn to surf or return to the beach.
After hanging out at the beach to enjoy the surfing competition, I headed over to the skate park to check out the BMX and Skate events. For most of the images, my camera was set to ISO 100, 1/1000 for shutter speed, and an aperture of f/2.8. These are baseline settings when trying to capture fast action on a bright sunny day. Also, I set my camera to evaluative metering, continuous focus (AF-C), and burst mode.
The images below were captured at multiple Vans U.S. Open of Surfing events from 2016-2022. Click on images to enlarge in lightbox.
