That's right I have ordered a true "professional" lens. It is the Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 VR lens to be exact. This baby retails for nearly $2,500. I'll be renting it for a photo shoot I have this weekend (non surf related) and I'll be holding on to it for a week. Lets really pray for some surf to roll through though because I'd love to try it out on the beach.

On the other hand I hear over at the Thomos Brothers Production studio, they are conjuring up a new surf video. I just sent some footage over. Hope it makes the cut. Look for it to come out later tonight or tomorrow.

Surfed today and yes...I had no booties on and I could still feel my board by the end of my session. Plus it was pretty fun although a little disorganized. As always the weather did not cooperate with taking photos. It started to downpour so I was only able to snap a few.

If you don't have work or school tomorrow morning I envy you. The forecast is looking really good for the morning time. Too bad I have a quiz right at 9AM. Fun. Another good thing is winter is finally out of here. Lots of sunshine and upper 70's are in the forecast for this upcoming week.

I'll be putting some photos up of what I got today shortly.

Mike C.

Forgot to resize a few....

(not today, 3.13)

A nice tiny little groundswell was all we got this morning. I heard Florida was seeing some nice waves but if you're reading this and checked the surf....well there wasn't much to check. It was nice seeing good waves for those few days. Maybe Friday morning will be better? I'm going to chance it and wake up early. If the waves aren't there I'll get to shoot a nice sunrise.

Here are some pics from over the last few days and this morning. I am going to read up on El Nino and post something with substance depending how busy I am with school in the next few days. I'll also gather up some information about this upcoming hurricane season. I have read a small amount of meteorological predictions for this season and it is looking like we may get more storms than usual.

Who knows....

Mike C.

I forgot to resize some of these so they may be a little big if you click on them. my bad

3.13

3.13


3.13


3.18


3.18


3.18


3.18


3.18

***The video is here*** Scroll down to watch it. This is the raw version. No audio. I am going to further edit it down.

I was kind of disappointed when I was looking over the photos I took yesterday. There were a lot of pictures that were just too dark or hazy to even fix because of the cloud cover and fog all day. Most of the pictures in this post were taken yesterday afternoon. If I find some more gems from the morning I'll put them up here.

The video feature I guess has better light sensitivity so I started the session off yesterday morning with video. This is the second video I have ever made so bear with me.

This camera is also made for taking still pictures not necessarily video, so quality is also an issue.
No tripod either. I need to invest in one to get better video.

I'll be putting more shots of throughout today and tomorrow if I find them

Mike C.














Raw Video. Semi Unedited.

Finally we had some really good waves this AM and it looks like it's going to stick around till dark. The conditions for waves were perfect. The conditions for shooting pics was a different story for the AM. It was super cloudy, foggy, and drizzly. Not ideal but I had to take some pics. They look okay; a little sun would have helped though.

I'm going to post a few now and then a bunch tonight.

Camera Talk:
If you are up on your photography terms the pictures below are going to be a little "noisy" or "grainy" due to the high ISO I had to use in order to freeze the action. Lighting was bad early this AM so ISO's hovered around 800-1000 for a good chunk of the morning.

Mike C.

Edit: Posting new photos now (7:24PM)















Blahhhh. The pics I took this afternoon are going to have to wait. I shot RAW as opposed to JPEG and I need to download a plug-in and do some other crazy stuff so Photoshop will recognize the RAW files. Tomorrow I'll put them up. Might put up a little video tonight.

Took a little trip down to Florida with some people to catch a fun swell (sb 0 10). It was good to get out of Charleston for a little and actually surf some decent waves. My internet at my apartment has been sub par so apologies for the lack of posts recently. All the pics below are from Jacksonville Beach Pier.

There were some fun waves out there today. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take any pictures due to the heavy rain at times. The camera wouldn't have liked that. Tomorrow and maybe Saturday look to be some really fun days ahead. If the weather cooperates I'll be shooting tomorrow.

Mike C.

Here are some shots that looked alright. Surf was knee high breaking right on shore nobody out.





Small swell may fill in soon early next week.

Mike C.

I heard I missed out on some fun surf on Tuesday. Unfortunately I was stuck in the business center of CofC all day. No fun for me but it looked like everyone was having a good time from the Washout cam.

But I didn't miss it all. This AM we had some waist high cold waves and I took the opportunity to test out the video function on my camera. I would've got in the water with the housing but again class interrupted.

I have some pictures I'll be posting up later but here is the video. It's my first video and it's not the best but I figured I'd put it up here with the lack of video we have of the Washout. I'm going to work on my shooting and video editing skills so it wont be unbearable to watch the mess below.

Mike C.












Mess below