Ripping it in the backyard!

Pico tomorrow!  I’ll fill you in on the conditions.

Well, I thought the day would never come.  And it still hasn’t.  But it seems to be just around the corner.

Looks like the AT&T deal went through and they’ve taken over Unicell.  I think I’ll wait for the iPhone until the next model is released, but I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these babies.

There are all sorts of cool apps available and some such as this sunrise/sunset, moonrise/moonset et. program which will work great for photographers. Moose Peterson reviews it Focalware here.

Now, does anybody know if there are any good backcountry topo maps available for the iPhone?  That would cinch the deal.

Well, maybe it’s actually the remaining puff ball of seeds from a dandelion, or similar flower.  I shot this the other day out behind my house.  Mornings are routinely below freezing now and the collision of the seasons bring about interesting opportunities for photography.

I thought I’d try the super-contrasty black and white method on this one.  I don’t know whether it works or not, but it certainly takes a second to figure out what it is.

• First, I revamped my website. Later this fall I’m going to add a lot more content. Let me know what you think. (Thanks to Michael Clark for the design.)
• Secondly, I’m getting married in three weeks.
• I’ve been working hard with fellow photographer Stephen Gorman. Currently we are working on illustrative photographs for a series of books on Hiking and Backpacking, Car Camping, Canoeing and Kayaking. More to come!
• I’ve also been traveling. I went to Washington and even did some July skiing

Here’s a photo from that trip. This is Steve making some nice buttery turns on Mt. Rainier, July 14.

Thank you aunt Connie for sharing this.

So I’m back. Sorry for the absence. I do have a 7 week road-trip to show for it. Still no excuse.

Anyways, I definitely have spent a lot of time in the car recently. All I can say is, THANK GOD FOR AUDIOBOOKS!

But, I did listen to a lot of music and have always asked people what are their “Desert Island Ten” albums. Not necessarily their favorite albums, but the albums they would have to be stuck with if they could not listen to any other album for the rest of the life.

Mine:

10. Non-Prophets – Hope

9. Matt Flinner – Latitude

8. Radiohead – The Bends

7. Morcheeba – Big Calm

6. Bob Marley – one of the many “Greatest Hits” albums

5. RJD2 – The Third Hand

4. Miles Davis – Kind of Blue

3. John Hartford – Aero-Plain

2. Bela Fleck – Drive

1. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Blood Sugar Sex Magik

There they are! What are yours? This is definitely an ongoing process and I’m sure I’ll revise it. Stay tuned for the Desert Island 10 books and movies!

Steve at Sugarbush a few hours ago zooming past me

I just had an amazing day at Sugarbush today. I’ve only skied there about 10 times, but every time I always left it saying, “I wish Sugarbush was my home mountain”. Here are my reasons:

1. Amazing glades. Cut glades. Locals glades. Mellow birch glades. Steep spruce glades. Hardwood glades. You get the idea.

2. Some real New England runs. Sorry Okemo, I love you and all, (well, I wouldn’t go that far), but seriously, does every trail need to be the width of a football field? Rumble. Just another example of a good ol’ east coast natural snow winding trail full of sticks and stones that might break your bones but will put a big smile on your face, trail.

3. Ridiculous snow. It snowed 5 inches at my house last night. It snowed about the same at Sugarbush last night. Then today it snowed ALL DAY when it was called for possible occasional snow showers.

4. Lift accessible back-country. No, we didn’t go into Slide Brook Ravine. But once Mt. Ellen opens, there will be a shuttle happens to go by the exit from the ravine.

5. Great snowmaking and grooming for days when the Mother N. is non-cooperative.

6. The “je ne sais quoi. “

Oh, I want to move up there.

As far as the snow situation is concerned, things in central and northern Vermont are looking great. From first-hand experience, Sugarbush woods have about 3-4 feet. It’s skiing deep. My backyard in Windsor, VT has about 4 inches of fluff on top of a nice crust with about 4 inches below. Beautiful.

First, some stats:

Sugarbush has had 10 inches in the last 48 hours. (And I think that’s low.)

Jay Peak is getting dumped on with over a foot in the last 24 hours. All lifts and almost all trails are open.

The Mt. Mansfield snow stake is at 42 inches. The average for this time of year: 24 inches.

AND THAT’S BEFORE THE STORM!

All signs are pointing toward a HUGE dump on Sunday! According to Joshua Fox at the Single Chair Weather Blog, Mad River could see more than two feet! There will be some sleet, but it looks like no freezing rain and it’s going to start and end with snow. Lots of it. Unfortunately, it looks like lower elevations aren’t going to get nearly as much, but you never know.

And if you really want to see what’s going on in the country, weather-wise, check out this radar map from NOAA that has the whole country.

I decided to research the newest ones and realized that although there have been a lot of advancements in features among digital p&s cameras, image quality has lagged far behind. This is especially true in regards to high ISO shots. Still, I persevered and decided on a camera, the Canon Powershot G9.

Canon G9

I rarely do not have my dslr with me but when I ski, it’s often too bulky to really relax with it on (in a pack). Therefore, I wanted a compact point and shoot that would provide me with most of my usual controls and without sacrificing detail. The major factors affecting my decision between the usual suspects at the top of the range (Canon Powershot G9, Ricoh GX100, Panasonic Lumix LX2 and a few others) were:

1. Manual Controls – Must have ability to set aperture, shutter speed, iso, flash, exposure compensation, etc…

2. RAW mode (ex. .crw, .nef) – in order to get the best out of a small sensor camera, or any camera for that matter, you must shoot in a proprietary. The high majority of p&s cameras only shoot jpegs. These are already compressed files for which you’ve already lost the ability to correct white balance in post-processing.

3. Optical viewfinder – Sometimes, even the best lcd screens are hard to see. You can always see through a viewfinder. They’re not great on these small ones but they’re better than nothing.

4. Low Noise – yeah right. The only one that seems decent of low noise is the Fuji F31fd or F30 but this has no RAW format, and I don’t think is even made anymore. Plus, it doesn’t have the next thing on this list.

5. Anti-shake mechanism – ccd-shift, lens shift, VR, IS.. A must have. It really works and enables you to take shots at much slower shutter speeds.

6. Good lens range – I want wide angle but I want telephoto as well. Although I’m primarily a landscape shooter, I know I’m going to want to shoot people skiing.

7. Decent autofocus – doesn’t need to be super-fast but I want it dead-on accurate. Luckily, due to the small size of a p&s camera sensor, even shutter speeds such as f/4 have amazing depth of field.

8. Continuous Shooting mode – If I’m shooting a skier I’m going to want to take a number of shots in a row and hopefully in quick succession.

9. Fast card write times and large buffer – I don’t want to miss a shot waiting for the photos to write to the card. Even in RAW, I want to shoot a number of shots in a row.

10. Lithium-ion battery – Nothing else has the juice, especially in the cold. Usually with two of these, you’re golden.

11. Decent Movie Mode – Might as well right? It’s fun, and I don’t even see why these new DSLRs such as the Nikon D300 with live view don’t have a movie mode. Anyways, at least basic tv quality. Unfortunately, most of these cameras don’t have an optical zoom in movie mode.

12. Size and weight – If it’s bulky I’m not going to want to carry it around. A great camera in the closet back home is no better than no camera at all.

13. Price

In a future post, I’ll explain why I chose the G9 specifically needless to say it seemed to meet most of my needs. I’m just learning how to use it, and yes, I’m reading my manual twice! (Check out my Six and a Half Easy Steps to Better Digital Photography) I have yet to see an image on screen so I’ll let you know about image quality once I’ve had some time with it.

In order to check out the features of the camera you are interested in, go to DPReview where you can compare camera features side-by-side and make real informed decisions.

I’m going to Okemo tomorrow.  Plenty of blog material coming soon.