I love Santa Cruz, the laid back vibe, the funky stores and restaurants, the musicians hanging out on the street corners…It’s a place I can go to just recharge. I could spend hours just watching the waves roll in while listening to the sounds and feeling the sand between my toes. I’ll never get tired of shooting beaches and sea shores, the tones of sand, water and sky, the open horizon. Yeah, this is the life.

Yeah, I’ve been really lazy about writing lately. I’ve been working on the portfolio section, added stuff, changed some things…take a look around. Anyway, this was from a couple weeks back. The weather has been all over the place lately but during that weekend it was beautiful. It was a great weekend to get out to the coast, which was apparently what hundreds of other people thought as well as there was a huge line of cars stretching all the way.

We were driving down Highway 1 looking for any beach that we haven’t been to yet when we came across a row of cars. So of course we had to stop and take a look. There were no signs out there so I’m not really sure where we were. We got out and headed towards the water but as we got closer, we were totally unprepared for the path we had to take. My wife had on a pair of flimsy flip flops and I had like 30lbs of camera gear with me.?

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This was the path we took down and was actually the easier of the two. It was so steep that we had to grab onto the ropes that were tied onto the drain pipe. Going down was the easy part…

But it was worth all the trouble getting down there. The beach was practically empty, like having your own private beach.?

I really can’t say enough about the 14-24mm. It is just about one of the most perfect lenses I’ve used. I have to be a little more careful with the bulbous front element though. I’ve had a couple scary close calls including one on this trip involving some sharp rocks.

I don’t usually shoot with the 135mm but I was really impressed with the dreamy sort of look that it can give you. I processed the hell out of these pictures with Silver Efex Pro so it is a little hard to tell it’s true quality here. I think I will definitely try to use it a little more often.

On my personal time, I’ll often try to get outside and away from my computer. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big tech junkie. I’m also a big gear junkie. Yes, there is always another piece of equipment that just makes sense to own. At least that’s how I rationalize it. I spend a good deal of my day in front of the computer, looking at images. Often it’s hard to pull myself away, but it always recharges me to get out there. Actually nature is one of the things that first got me into photography. I would find amazing locations that I wanted to capture in my own way. I used to be pretty hardcore about it. Wake up way before sunrise to get to just the right spot. Standing around in the freezing dark waiting, waiting, for that perfect light. Heavy tripod, cable release, graduated filters, polarizers…transparency film. Wow, I’m getting rather nostalgic.

Anyway, I’m totally spoiled living in the Bay Area. I live 20 minutes away from a place like this. The above was shot with the Nikon 14-24mm lens. The grayscale treatment is created with Nik’s Silver Efex Pro. I’ll usually test an image with a quick grayscale treatment in Lightroom. If I like it I’ll send it into Photoshop and run it through the Nik plug-in. I still miss shooting actual black and white film, but this is the next best thing. If you do a lot of black and white, there is really no reason not to have this plug-in.

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More hand held shots with my new 45mm PC-E. This is quickly becoming a lens that I always have with me. I still need to think about it’s operation sometimes. Hand holding it with the lens rotated, trying to unlock and lock the right knob… I also had a little panic moment. I swapped lenses quite often while I was out and inadvertently rotated the aperture ring off the lock position. I just couldn’t figure out why I could no longer change aperture from the camera body. I thought I was totally screwed. Tried unmounting and remounting the lens. If only this lens had an aperture ring…if only…wait, it does have an aperture ring. I am so used to the new Nikon lenses no longer having an aperture ring, I forgot that this lens does have one. Plus, this lens has the aperture ring located mid-body, not near the mount. I really wish that there was a lock switch like on the older lenses. It’s rather easy to rotate the ring out of lock position, especially if swapping lenses a lot. Well I’ll never forget that incident. I’m glad it happened now and not during a shoot. I can just imagine the sudden hot flash, the sweat starting to bead up…

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I’ve always loved driving along 280 and seeing the rolling hills and the silhouette of trees rushing by. There are so many places that are just minutes from civilization, but that give you the quiet solitude of being alone in nature. I decided to do a little shooting at one of my favorite places, Arastradero Preserve.

Lately I’ve been experimenting with a new lens, the Nikon PC-E 45mm 2.8. It’s proving to be great for product shots, as expected, and just about everything else as well. I’m really liking the depth of field effects that can be created with this lens for both people and objects.

It’s fairly large but pretty light weight compared to my other lenses. Shooting hand held is so far working out better than expected. The only issue I’ve come across is the vignetting that can occur when the movements are at the extremes. I have to keep reminding myself not to take it too far…

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This one was actually shot with the 14-24 mm 2.8 as the 45 was not wide enough. I guess I’ll have to get the 24mm PC-E…

I’m going to keep this lens in mind for my next environmental portrait shoot. I love the way that it can throw everything except a small sliver of the image out of focus. I can just imagine the possibilities…I didn’t experience any problems hand holding it while manual focusing though I will usually take a couple extra shots just for insurance.