This kind of stuff is great for Queensland Tourism!

All signs pointed to Noosa coming alive this weekend! “Cyclone Ului is generating monster swells that will punish the Southeast Queensland Coastline this weekend!” “A Century Swell!” “8-12 Foot Waves on Saturday!” “Dangerous conditions this weekend! Storm Surges, Localised Flooding and Beach Erosion forecast!”

Friday Afternoon was exciting, the swell was sizeable and the atmosphere was electric. Everybody had heard what was heading our way, there was talk of things to come everywhere I turned. Everything was coming together nicely. I got some setup shots, popped around and shot some stuff with the Glidetrack and finished off with some time lapse when it got too dark for video. This was all just a reconnaissance mission, the next day was what counted. . .Saturday was game day! Sadly it didn’t quite turn out the way everybody thought.

Despite the media doing their usual stuff, I thought the Coastalwatch Swell Forecast would be at least somewhat accurate. After a week of excitement that built to feverish pitch at 5:30am this morning while I was driving to Noosa, arriving at the car park out at first point was a little bit of an anti-climax. It looked smaller than the evening before and despite picking up a little bit, it soon got pretty messy. It became apparent that the fabled “8-12 foot waves” were just that, and unlikely to be seen. I’ve got to say it was a little depressing having been looking forward to it all week.

Now don’t get me wrong, there were some good waves to be had, but they just weren’t the kind of bone-crunching waves that I had been hoping for. Something really crazy with more serious consequences for a misplaced foot or an overly ambitious turn. Something that would make for good vision!

By lunchtime I’d called it quits and headed home via. Mooloolaba, just to see if any madmen were chasing closeouts on the beach. There wasn’t a lot going on and so it was wrapped.

Sadly I didn’t really capture anything that is, what I would call, outstanding. If anything, the footage from the Cyclone Hamish Swell in November of ’08 was much crazier and made for better watching. Anyway, better not neg on it too much, we’ll see how it comes up when it’s all done and dusted. Hopefully it won’t take too long to get it up.

On another note, I finally heard from Canon with regard to the Autofocus issues I had been having. After this tweet “May have to give up the hope of @CanonAustralia helping with my Canon 7D #autofocus issue. No progress in three weeks. Blog post Friday.” I received an e-mail from the Service Department, there was no mention of there being a known (read: admitted) issue with 7D’s, but it did seem like they were taking the issue seriously and that they gave a damn. Which I might say is very nice, as I was beginning to think that they didn’t and wasn’t looking forward to having a sour taste in my mouth. I’m yet to make contact back to them as it came through on Friday afternoon but I’ll let you all know how it progresses.

More soon!

[Show as slideshow]

It was a scorching hot October day, a merciless sun beat down on mine and thousands of other shoulders as my lovely lady and I carried the camera gear kilometers up the beach. Up ahead in the distance (*Sings* I saw a shimmering light!) hundreds of kites hung in a stiff breeze coming straight off the pacific, pulling tightly against their strings. Children looked up in awe, adults stood rooted to the spot, astounded. It truly was a sight to behold and I think the Coolum Kite Festival surprised us all that day. It was fantastic!

I’d heard about this event a while back and thought it might be interesting to shoot. Let’s be straight though, I thought it would be a couple of locals flying their little kites down on the beach, nothing too crazy, but worth a look. I was stunned! It was huge, apparently one of the best kite festivals in the world with international fliers and everything. People had come from all over, there was even international media at the event. I really couldn’t believe it!

I went there with the 500D kit and sadly (Well, not really, but almost) it will probably be the last 500D video I shoot, as the 7D arrives in about an hour (not that I’m counting ). The HVX with a Rode shotgun and Dead Cat came along too, as I figured this time I would like to get at least a little bit of interview footage as well.

My lovely girlfriend accompanied me to give me a hand and was put in charge of holding the HVX and reflector. She was a huge help and only dropped the HVX in the sand once! Could have been disastrous, but it actually wasn’t as bad as it sounds, a lot of blowing and less freaking out than I would have thought, and it was back to normal with no grit in the zoom or anything. Happy Days! Anyway. . .

I ended up shooting a similar kind of style to the golf clip, as I was really pleased with how the handheld shots brought a more organic and lively feel to the action when cut with the locked off shots.

All the handheld footage was shot with the Sigma 30mm f1.4. The lens works really nicely for this, but because the whole rig is so light, you have got to be very steady with it or the rolling shutter issues of the CMOS sensor totally destroy the footage. I am thinking that getting some rods will add to the weight of the camera and help those shots as well as be the first step towards adding a matte box to the kit, which I desperately want to do. A full rig with a follow focus, matte box and all would be perfect, but at this stage, could be a little while off. I’ll put that one on the wishlist!

There’s a couple of wides in there from the Tokina 11-16 and the telephoto’s are from the trusty Canon 75-300.

This was really fun to shoot, the kites were mesmerising to watch. In hindsight, I should have probably shot some slow motion of the bigger ones as the tails and what not would have looked almost hypnotic at 50 frames a second, but there’s always next year.

More soon. . .