Santa Barbara Surfing ... You *Can* Go Back

Surfing in Santa Barbara means contending with consistently underwhelming waves. The upside? Plenty of time to hone kayak fishing techniques, spear fishing tactics and campfire tending skills.

That's exactly how it played out at Refugio state beach on Spat Out in Glory's latest barrel quest. One with local knowledge might question the choice of destinations: Refugio? AKA Refoofio? AKA the least barreling wave on California's central coast? (Video after the jump.)

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Super 8 Surf Cinematography: Last Rincon Reel

Spat Out in Glory burned three reels of Super 8 at Rincon in mid-April: Here's the final installment.

The faults in the footage have been made clear in the first two reels. Ektachrome 64T casting its weirdly bluish tint from lack of proper filtering, mostly. Video after the jump...

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Super 8 Surf Cinematography: Reel 2 at Rincon

Next verse/Same as the first/A little bit bluer/And a little bit worse ...

Below find Reel 2 of the Rincon Super 8 surf test shots. This one runs the Beaulieu 4008ZM4 through the paces with a 102mm Canon TV lens. No 85 filter, which of course is necessary to make Ektachrome 64T work in outdoor lighting. ...

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Super 8 Surf Cinematography, From A to B

Is Spat Out in Glory's quest to create a Super 8 surf film an exercise in audacity, doomed to failure by excessive hubris? Certainly. But Spat's willingness to humble itself equals its delusions of grandeur.

Thus the following video, running Kodak Ektachrome 64T film through every setting the Beaulieu 4008ZM4 has on its heavily knobbed, knurled and buttoned chassis. Shot mid-April, at Rincon. ...

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Sasquatch Surf Sighting: Rincon Nose Rides

Spat Out in Glory is claiming its rightful place alongside the Patterson film as the best evidence yet that North American Great Apes walk, and surf, among us.

Sasquatch deniers are reaching for the nitro glycerin pills.

Spat had set up on Rincon Point, south of Santa Barbara, to run some test reels of Ektachrome 64. There was a rustling in the bushes and out of the foliage strolled a southern variant of the N.A.G.A., carrying a 9'6" Yater. Paddled out and took his place at the peak. The wolf pack parted in sure knowledge that the pecking order had been re-arranged.

In the video below, note the Ancient One's light footwork ... no mean feat with size 24 flippers. Nose walks, hang 5's, an attempted twirly. All old school, all fluid, all legit. The wolf pack hooted him into curl after curl. Respect for the N.A.G.A. is not optional. ...

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Surf on Super 8: Air Mats and Body Whomps

The most durable lesson of shooting surf footage during Spat Out in Glory's stay in Nicaragua: It isn't as easy as it looks...

Which is to say two things. One: A 42-year-old body with athletic handicaps takes longer to learn hollow beach breaks than one might think. Two: Film and video are both fickle bitch goddesses who make you pay your dues before they yield perfectly fruited imagery.

Witness the Super 8 footage after the jump. ...

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Nica Post: Video...Telephoto Surf Taste Test

The good news: surfing video found after the jump. The bad news? It's in the form of a camera-wonky comparison of the Canon 1.7x telephoto against the Raynox 2025 2.2x telephoto.

Fact is, 1.7x is only adequate for shooting beach breaks close to shore. Beyond that, it looks like bad home video. (Insert painful insult to the rest of Spat Out in Glory here.) The Raynox puts you a bit closer to the action and that's good in terms of making the video watchable...

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