A bunch of photo's my 14 year old young bloke took over the last couple of days. As you can see pretty good job on the timing but some of the shots are grainy or maybe not quite in focus. He was using a canon eos 450D with the standard 250mm lense set on the sports mode. Not sure if it was just because of the poor early morning light or we should be messing with the settings. I have no idea so any advice would be good. Photos of the blokes getting pitted on the right are pretty good and he got the whole sequence so if you know them Pm me with the details and I'll flick them through to them. Cheers, Stew
A bit off track but two photos. First in 1986 when I had a bit more hair, second yesterday 30 years later. Same same but different. 
Select to expand quoteremarc said...
A bit off track but two photos. First in 1986 when I had a bit more hair, second yesterday 30 years later. Same same but different.
Style almost identical 30 years apart - great pics!
Yeah great timing for the pics & those last couple are cool as...not familiar with the camera but a little brightness adjustment with a photo editor should be easy as...cheers for the share 
Were you guys shooting manual or auto? Switch over to manual then play around with the ISO; try lower iso's to get rid of the grain. Then you'd need to give the aperture and shutter speed adjusted. If you can shoot with shutter speed priority (higher the better to capture sports photography) the camera will adjust the aperture itself.
Like one of the other lads say, then you can mess around with it post editting but thats not going to be much use if you take an average photo. Speaking of editting then make sure you take photoes in RAW; gives you more leeway to play around post editting.
And the standard lens is pretty basic. Shooting in low light environments is always a challenge. The better the lens the better the image, but in low light sports mode or shutter speed priority the aperture will be larger resulting in a loss of crispness. ISO will help as will a better lens, but there is only so much you can do when the light is really low.
RAW helps too, but as he said, there is only so much digital magic editing can do.
You have to be cruel to be kind.
Your lens is letting you down, I'd guess it's a kit lens that came with the camera. If he is half serious have a look at the sigma ex series 70-200 f2.8 nice lens for the price specially if you can get a 2x convertor. If you really love your son canon L series.
Don't shoot program mode, the camera is stupid. You have to make a decision on what you want, is the depth of field (aperture) important or the speed.
Shoot manual, you need to be in control.
Buy a grey card and use that to set your exposures manually, or expose on the white water and over expose by 1 to 2 stops. I find shooting digital you have to go 1 stop over to get a bit of punch into the shoot, over film (he can google what that is ).
You can use the info button at the back to see the exposure curve, it should be a triangle shape, or similar, with the end of the shape at the far right.
Rule of thumb: Sunny 16 rule for exposure to get you in the right ball park then adjust from there.
The shutter speed was slow on some shots hence the out of focus or blurred looked. Also because its in a program mode the camera is trying to get the correct exposure, so check the ISO of the photos and see if they vary around. The higher the ISO the grainier the shot. If it's like over ISO400 you don't have enough light.
Focus manually sometimes the spray throws the auto focus out, especially that far out.
Keep an eye on the horizon to keep it straight, the idea is to limit the post production work.
Post production cropping - cropping too much also pixelates the final image, try not to go below an image size of 2848x1898 if you want A3 prints
I need to stop know, too much info. Most of all practice the settings at home, line up a 5 or 6 bottles one behind each other, put the camera on a tripod and change the settings to see how the image changes.
Don't be one of those photogs that shoots a 1000 imagines and hopes for the best, try to make each one count. I watched a doco on this professional wildlife photog and he shoot 500 rolls of 36 film and only got 6 good shoots, now that's picky.
Enjoy
Select to expand quotephotosbykarlo said..
You have to be cruel to be kind.
Your lens is letting you down, I'd guess it's a kit lens that came with the camera. If he is half serious have a look at the sigma ex series 70-200 f2.8 nice lens for the price specially if you can get a 2x convertor. If you really love your son canon L series.
Don't shoot program mode, the camera is stupid. You have to make a decision on what you want, is the depth of field (aperture) important or the speed.
Shoot manual, you need to be in control.
Buy a grey card and use that to set your exposures manually, or expose on the white water and over expose by 1 to 2 stops. I find shooting digital you have to go 1 stop over to get a bit of punch into the shoot, over film (he can google what that is ).
You can use the info button at the back to see the exposure curve, it should be a triangle shape, or similar, with the end of the shape at the far right.
Rule of thumb: Sunny 16 rule for exposure to get you in the right ball park then adjust from there.
The shutter speed was slow on some shots hence the out of focus or blurred looked. Also because its in a program mode the camera is trying to get the correct exposure, so check the ISO of the photos and see if they vary around. The higher the ISO the grainier the shot. If it's like over ISO400 you don't have enough light.
Focus manually sometimes the spray throws the auto focus out, especially that far out.
Keep an eye on the horizon to keep it straight, the idea is to limit the post production work.
Post production cropping - cropping too much also pixelates the final image, try not to go below an image size of 2848x1898 if you want A3 prints
I need to stop know, too much info. Most of all practice the settings at home, line up a 5 or 6 bottles one behind each other, put the camera on a tripod and change the settings to see how the image changes.
Don't be one of those photogs that shoots a 1000 imagines and hopes for the best, try to make each one count. I watched a doco on this professional wildlife photog and he shoot 500 rolls of 36 film and only got 6 good shoots, now that's picky.
Enjoy
Thanks for the response from all. photosbykarlo, sorry mate but you lost me at the "you have to be cruel to be kind" well nearly anyway .
Fortunately for me the young bloke has got a better idea and he has taken the advice on board so hopefully the next lot will be tighter. while he is practicing on the photos I might just keep surfing. Yeeeeew
Other guys answer was waay more comprehensive but going with a lower ISO would be my first point of call. This in turn has follow on effects that are positive and negative. It would at least reduce the noise (grainyness).
The more practise and experimenting with setting the better.
I prefer to shoot under aperture priority, but he would likely end up with shutter speeds that are too slow for action shots.
It's a shame but low light action photography is hard unless $$$$ are spent. A faster lens would help.
If photography is something he is keen on pursuing, good lenses last a long time and don't get outdated quickly. They also hold their value well. I've learnt the hard way of trying to get by with cheaper lenses only to be disappointed and upgraded anyway (user error is probably largely to blame also...).
The same doesn't really apply to camera bodies.
Noise reduction software (lightroom has it) could get rid of some of the graining. But it will only get you so far.
Also, as far as timing is concerned I recon those shots look great.
I think photographing surfing certainly needs inside knowledge to read the wave and what the surfer is likely to do.
I have a relative who is a very good photographer with great gear. But he can't get great surfing shots as he doesn't really understand the sport (and has only tried probably twice haha).
agree good shots and timing excellent - "only a surfer knows the feeling"
biggest issue is lighting for that model camera
need to get as much light as you can onto the sensor for the autofocus to have any chance in action sports, more light = lower ISO(less grain)too (broad assumption but will do for now)
no matter how great the shot etc if is out of focus can't correct that in post production
i shoot with aperture priority (auto ISO) for sports, but those kit lens have relatively small apertures (less light), more so as you go out in the zoom range, which you see in your shots, closer ones and better lit ones are crisper
solutions
1. wait for the sun to come up (!)
2. shoot closer
3.consider manual focus - ok for more distant shots where focus is infinity
4. usually can pull out more details in post production so edit them, that is the point of digital, iPhoto fine for most, sharpen, crop, use exposure adjustments, (not sure if that camera can collect RAW but much more scope for adjustments than JPEG, which involves in the camera processing)
3. spend a few bucks on a 2nd hand lens, sigma tamron canon all have a few good options, ducks nuts is f2.8 (= biggish hole for lots of light) but f4 good too
4. camera up grade to 70d (or new 80d - very good video too), 7d or the big daddy of sport 1dx (!) ( canon hierarchy , the more numbers before the D the lower the grade of model xxxxd <450d < xxd< xd )
i started with a similar 550d to see how things went and kept moving up the scale, gumtree etc , second hand fine or borrow off a mate/school and see what suits
nikon v canon = ford v holden etc, take your pick
Cool shots nice waves looks chilly...I personally like surf shots drawn back abit over close ups...nice backhand hooks in the pocket sending buckets of spray
