Anyone who has shot with a zone focus camera knows it's a particularly fun challenge. Compared to a single-lense reflex (SLR) camera, you are unable to "see" whether your subject is in focus by just looking through the viewfinder. Instead, that little glass window simply serves to confirm that you're pointing the camera in the right direction. With a zone-focus camera like the Nikonos V, a photographer must pre-set the focal distance, based on the aperture, before holding the camera up to their eye to take the shot.
This creates a peculiar procedure for capturing an image. The solution might be obvious to some: set the focal distance and then position yourself at that distance from your subject- easy. However when you're in the ocean, whether underwater or on the surface, you usually don't have perfect control of where your body is at any given moment. Most of the time rather, you find yourself fighting a cross-current, the washing-machine movement of crashing waves, and a riptide that is begging to pull you out to sea.
When I photograph my brother out in the surf, I typically find myself in this situation. Not to mention, the best angle is always mid-impact zone, where I dolphin-dive under waves repeatedly until he finally stands up on one. Hopefully, we've communicated whether he's taking more lefts or rights that day and I'm floating right inside ready for him to come barreling towards me. If I've set the focal distance on my Nikonos V to "5m", I wait for him to slide within five meters, snap the shot, and quickly duck under the wave he's riding as to not get somersaulted in white wash.
Considering this takes stars-align kind of coordination, it's remarkable any of these photos turn out upon development. I think most of these shots are happy accidents. That just means when I do catch the white sliver of a board and a black wetsuit in focus, I'm ever the more stoked to see it.
Happy Accidents
Urban Barrel
Drop Down