After Annies spectacular beach shoot, we went over to Hookipa to try some more surfing shots. Last week I was limited to approaching strangers and I wanted to have a model with me in the water that I could direct and experiment with a little. I also upgraded my SPL Surface Water Splash Housing with a 28″ custom made extension pole. While I cannot really aim with it, it does allow me to raise the camera and housing a couple feet out of the water giving it a completely different perspective on the surfers. I believe this to be a really great investment. Camera is a Canon 7D with a Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye Lens.Something I wanted to do with Annie was get a few good shots of her duck diving under the waves. Ive played with this a little, and I thought I was nailing the shots, but what happened was when I put the camera into my housing, I accidentally flipped the focus switch to manual. It was at “infinity” which on the Canon 8-15mm is 3 feet. So the surfers came out ok for the most part, but getting close to annie under water…they were all out of focus. I even checked when I was swimming out there, and between the glare of the sun and the water, you can’t always see the monitor perfectly, and I thought I was getting these….but obviously not. We had been shooting for several hours at that point, so we decided to call it a day.

I absolutely cannot wait to get back into the water to redeem myself, maybe this weekend?