Surf Cameras
There are two companies that are making waterproof cameras accessible to all extreme sports enthusiasts — GoPro and Contour. It's now easy to strap a camera to your board, arm or head, and shoot your entire session in full HD. The prices are coming down, and the quality of the video is improving all the time. They have all been developed for professional use, so high quality is guarantee. They can be used both in and out of the water, are fully waterproof, and have been tested in the heaviest surf conditions.
Getting footage of your surf session can actually help you improve your surfing. Check out your balance, pop up skills, and re-live the barrel you got earlier. It's now possible to create your own surf movies (which you can now post in our surf video gallery), and upload them to YouTube or Vimeo with little effort.
There are several ways that you keep your surf camera with you while you're out, here are the options:
Wrist Mounted
The GoPro HD Hero has a wrist strap housing accessory. Simply put your camera into the housing and slip it over your wrist. The housing is quick release, and means you have full control of what you shoot while you surf. Get a tube riders view, underwater shots or film other surfers while riding on the same wave.
On Board Camera
Both Contour and GoPro offer adhesive mountings that you can attach to your surfboard. Face it towards you and check out your style while you ride. Face it away and film exactly what you see during the ride. The on board camera looks after itself, once it's placed you can leave it attached to your surfboard and forget about it.
Helmet Cam
This is a great choice for surfers, snowboarders and bikers. The waterproof camera attaches to the helmet, points forward, and shoots everything you are looking at. This provides some fantastic footage. A helmet camera comes highly recommended.
Chest Cam
Place your arms through the chest straps and make sure that the cam points forwards. Simple as that. It's not an ideal position for paddling prone, and is more suitable for stand up paddle boarding.
Make sure you get a spare lithium-ion battery, and that you fully recharge before you leave for your surf session.
Here is some GoPro Contour HD footage that shows the quality that you can get.
And now something shot on the GoPro HD Hero. This one shows some nice slow mo' action starring pro surfer Kalani Robb.
