Willie and I haven't had a good photo shoot in a while. All of our Death Valley shoots were a bust and we hoped that Sunday would change our luck. We watched as Saturday and Sunday morning brought amazing sunsets and sunrises yet we stayed in bed out of laziness. Not wanting to miss another good opportunity we hoped in the car and decided to try our luck at Marshall Beach in San Francisco. Neither of us had been here before and Willie was exhausted after a 10 mile hike the day before so I drove us through traffic as we found our way to the Golden Gate Bridge. Due to unexpected traffic we arrived at Marshall Beach much later than we intended. We raced down the mile long hike to the beach (it's pretty steep, but luckily the city of SF built a bunch of steps to make the trail down nice and easy). We got to the beach and quickly realized there were numerous compositions and we ran back and forth trying to find a good one before the sun got low and started lighting up the sky. Eventually we settled on a spot in the back that gave us a composition with rocks that would direct the incoming waves and provide some nice foreground motion. After finding a spot that I liked I got my Lee filter holder, remote shutter, and filters out and began to setup my tripod…. As I pulled open my tripod legs and went to attach my camera to the tripod my heart skipped a beat …. my bullhead looked strange. It was then that I noticed the knob that turns the quick release head to clamp my camera to the tripod was missing. Not a big deal I thought, I can at least use my fingers to turn the screw. Oh wait …. the clamp that moves in and holds the camera in was gone too!!! Completely missing. I have no idea how the entire thing fell off but it meant that my tripod was useless! I'm hoping that Acratech will replace the bullhead, or at least replace the part, for free. I was forced to hand-hold my shots for this shoot. Knowing that we needed long shutters to provide foreground motion Willie