Swim fins for surf photography: what I wear and why

Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through them I earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Everything here is gear I actually swim with.

Fins are the least glamorous purchase in water photography and the one I'd least like to give up. People will agonize for weeks over a housing and then grab whatever fins are nearest the register, which is exactly backwards.

Here's the way I put it in my guide: fins are your tripod. Everything stable about a water photo comes from your legs. A camera in your hands takes an arm out of your swimming, so your legs make up the difference, and your fins are the gearing on those legs. Land photographers spend real money on what holds the camera steady. In the water, that's your fins.

What I actually wear

I swim DaFins, one shoe size up, over Dakine fin socks. And I wear fin leashes.

The DaFins are a soft, short blade fin from the bodysurfing tradition, and that tradition is the right one to borrow from, because bodysurfers and water photographers do the same kind of swimming: explosive bursts to hold position, treading between waves, quick direction changes, the occasional sprint out of the impact zone. Short soft blades accelerate fast from a dead stop and don't torque your ankles when the whitewater grabs them. You give up top end cruising speed you weren't going to use anyway.

The fin socks solve the two problems that actually end sessions: rubbing and cold. Bare feet in fins are fine for a while, then salt, sand, and friction start manufacturing blisters, and a photographer with raw heels shoots shorter sessions all week. The socks also snug up the fit, which is why I size the fins up one to make room for them.

The fin leashes are the cheapest insurance in my kit, because in bigger surf a fin can come off, and with a leash it's still attached to my leg instead of gone. Losing a fin a few hundred yards out with a camera in one hand turns a session into a swim test.

All of it's linked on the gear page, current as of whatever I'm actually wearing this season.

The test that matters

Whatever brand you land on, the bar is this: buy the fins that let you tread water calmly for two hours, because you can't frame anything while you're kicking in a panic.

That means fit over features. A fin should be snug enough that a hard kick doesn't shift it and loose enough that your toes aren't curled. Decide on fin socks first, then size the fin with the sock on. Then tread water hard for a minute. If the fin wobbles or your foot cramps, the fit is wrong, and no feature list fixes fit.

Do fins even matter on small days

The honest answer is that on a knee high day at a gentle break you could swim out in nothing and be fine. But fins aren't for the average moment of a session, they're for the worst one. The set that catches you inside. The current that switches on. The moment you misjudge and need to be somewhere else fast with one arm full of camera.

That's why "always wear fins" is one of my two personal rules that never change. The other is a helmet, always. Mine has saved my life more than once, and it keeps the sun off you too. Neither rule has an asterisk for small days, because the ocean doesn't check the forecast before it hands you the bad moment.

They're also, more cheerfully, what lets you hold the good position instead of drifting off it. Position is everything in this craft, and position is paid for with legs. Better engine, better seat, better photos. It's that direct.

The whole kit, kept simple

Fins, socks, leashes, helmet. It's the least expensive corner of a water photography setup, it lasts years, and it's the part you'll stop thinking about once it's right, which is the point. Gear you don't think about is gear that's working.

Everything I wear and swim with is on the gear page with current links, from the fins up to the housing. If you're building your setup from zero, start there, because it's the shortest honest answer to "what should I buy": the stuff that's actually on my body every time I swim out. And if you're still deciding on the big purchase, my water housing article walks the whole ladder from phone case to pro housing.