In the pursuit of waves that exist at the edges of the known world, the act of capture becomes as demanding as the act of discovery itself. Dylan Graves, a filmmaker who has made a practice of finding what others overlook, has shared the quiet discipline behind his point-of-view surf footage — a system built not on complexity, but on decisions deferred wisely and tools trusted completely. His methods remind us that the best creative choices are often the ones that remove friction between the moment and its preservation.
Dylan Graves Shares POV Surf Filming Techniques for Capturing Waves
The best camera is the one you have on you
Mark
So Graves is basically saying that the best technique is to not overthink technique while you're actually filming?
Mimi
Exactly. He's solving for the reality of surfing—you're in motion, you're focused on the wave, you can't be fiddling with settings or worrying about whether your frame is the right shape. The square format and the magnetic mount are about removing friction.
Luke
But that's partly a pitch for the specific camera, right? I mean, the video is a breakdown of his techniques, but it's also a showcase for the DJI Osmo Action Six. We should be clear about that.
Mimi
Absolutely. He's not hiding it. But the principles he's talking about—shooting flat for color matching, using strong mounts, prioritizing audio—those aren't unique to that camera. They're just good practices.
Mark
What about the low-light thing? That seems like a real technical limitation for surf filmmaking.
Mimi
It is. Most surfers are in the water at dawn or dusk, which is when the light is worst. Norway was an extreme example, but even a normal dawn patrol session is challenging. You need a camera that can handle that.
Luke
The question is: how much of that is the camera's capability versus the filmmaker's skill in post-production? Graves is clearly doing serious color work in editing. A weaker camera in his hands might still look good.
Mark
Fair point. But he's also saying the audio is the thing he uses most. That's interesting—it's not about the visual at all.
Mimi
Right. People focus on the image, but audio is what makes a scene feel real. If you're in the water and you can hear the wave breaking, the paddle, the moment of takeoff—that's what sells the experience.
Luke
Though we should note that he's using this camera specifically because it has good audio. A different setup might require different choices. The advice is somewhat inseparable from the equipment.
Le Pouls
- Graves films in square format to sidestep the impossible in-water calculation of whether a shot will fit Instagram or a widescreen film — the edit decides, not the ocean.
- Matching D-Log color profiles across all cameras on a trip creates visual coherence that viewers feel without ever noticing, stitching together footage from multiple shooters into a single story.
- A magnetic mount system has kept every camera out of the ocean across years of impact-zone filming — reliability that isn't a luxury when the alternative is losing equipment to a breaking wave.
- Filming in northern Norway, where the sun barely crested the horizon, pushed low-light performance to its limit and proved the camera's worth in conditions most operators would avoid.
- On-camera audio runs continuously even when dedicated microphones are present, building a redundancy that guarantees a usable sound track in the one environment where audio capture is hardest.
In the pursuit of waves that exist at the edges of the known world, the act of capture becomes as demanding as the act of discovery itself. Dylan Graves, a filmmaker who has made a practice of finding what others overlook, has shared the quiet discipline behind his point-of-view surf footage — a system built not on complexity, but on decisions deferred wisely and tools trusted completely. His methods remind us that the best creative choices are often the ones that remove friction between the moment and its preservation.
Dylan Graves has built his career on finding waves that most people never see — breaks that demand patience, local knowledge, and a willingness to follow light and swell into unfamiliar corners of the world. But a perfect wave left undocumented is a wave that disappears. In a recent YouTube breakdown, Graves laid out the practical philosophy behind how he brings those moments back.
His core approach is deliberately counterintuitive: shoot square, decide later. In the water, there's no room to calculate aspect ratios. By filming in a square format with his DJI Osmo Action Six, Graves preserves full flexibility for the edit — the same footage can be cropped vertically for social media or horizontally for a film, without any compromise made in the moment.
Color consistency follows the same logic. Because Graves works alongside other filmmakers on trips, he shoots in D-Log — a flat, ungraded color profile — so that all the footage, regardless of who shot it, can be graded to match in post. The visual unity viewers feel is invisible by design.
The physical setup is built around one principle: never lose a camera. A magnetic mount system lets him shift positions quickly and holds firmly enough that years of impact-zone filming haven't cost him a single piece of equipment. That reliability is the foundation everything else rests on.
Lighting pushed the system hardest in northern Norway, where the sun barely rose during his stay and every session happened in the dim, golden half-light of a perpetual near-sunrise. The camera held up. So did the audio — the feature Graves says he uses most. He keeps the microphone running even when a dedicated shotgun mic is on set, ensuring there's always a clean track from the one environment where capturing sound cleanly is nearly impossible.
The principle underneath all of it is older than any camera: the best tool is the one you actually have. Graves keeps the Osmo in his pocket as a habit, ready for whatever arrives — because the moment, when it comes, doesn't wait.
Dylan Graves has built a reputation for finding waves that most people don't know exist—the kind of breaks that require patience, local knowledge, and a willingness to chase light and swell to unexpected corners of the world. But discovering a perfect wave means nothing if you can't bring it back to show anyone else. In a recent YouTube breakdown, Graves walked through the practical mechanics of how he captures what he finds, offering a master class in point-of-view filming that extends well beyond the obvious.
The foundation of his approach is counterintuitive: shoot square, then decide later. When you're in the water, the last thing you need is a voice in your head calculating whether the frame is tall enough for Instagram or wide enough for a full edit. Graves shoots in a square format that gives him complete flexibility in post-production. If the footage ends up in a vertical social media feed, he crops it one way. If it's destined for a landscape-oriented film, he crops it another. The camera—a DJI Osmo Action Six—stays mounted where it needs to be, and the creative decisions happen in the edit suite, not in the moment.
That flexibility extends to color work as well. A typical surf film isn't built from a single camera's perspective. Graves works alongside other filmmakers on trips, each shooting their own angles and coverage. To make all that footage feel like it belongs in the same story, he relies on D-Log color profiles, a flat, ungraded format that gives him maximum control in post. Because his action camera shoots in the same D-Log standard as his other gear, he can apply matching color grades across all the footage, creating visual continuity that viewers never consciously notice but always feel.
The physical durability of the setup matters more than most people realize. Graves uses a magnetic mount system that lets him move the camera from a mouth mount to a selfie stick to any other position without fumbling with complicated hardware. More importantly, the magnetic connection is strong enough that he hasn't lost a single camera to the ocean, despite years of filming in conditions that would destroy lesser equipment. That reliability is non-negotiable when you're working in the impact zone.
Lighting presents a challenge that casual observers might not anticipate. Surfers chase the best waves, which often means paddling out at dawn or dusk—those magical windows when the light is soft and the conditions are typically most favorable. But that also means filming in low-light conditions that would make a traditional camera operator nervous. Graves recently traveled to northern Norway, where the sun never fully rose during his stay, creating a perpetual sunrise-and-sunset environment with minimal actual daylight. His camera needed to perform in those extreme conditions, and it did.
Audio quality turned out to be the feature he uses most. The on-camera microphone captures surprisingly usable sound even in the hardest recording environment imaginable—the impact zone, where waves are breaking and water is everywhere. Graves keeps the camera rolling for audio even when other crew members are shooting the same scene with dedicated shotgun microphones. That redundancy ensures he always has a clean, usable audio track, which is harder to achieve in water than almost anywhere else.
In the end, Graves returns to a principle that has outlasted every technological shift in filmmaking: the best camera is the one you actually have with you. He keeps the Osmo Action Six in his pocket as a matter of habit, ready to capture whatever presents itself. That preparedness, combined with the camera's ability to deliver both high-quality video and clear audio without requiring him to think about technical settings, means he never misses the moment when it arrives.
Citations marquantes
If you want to use it for social media later you have the vertical option, and if you want to use it in landscape kind of main edit, you can use that as well. You don't really have to think too much.— Dylan Graves, on shooting square format
I end up using the mic on this more than anything. It all sounds really clear, even in the water, even with being in the impact zone.— Dylan Graves, on the camera's audio capabilities
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