Some Great Photo Galleries

Many of you already waste much of your days on FGG. I do to and it's one of my all time favorite sites. I've stumbled upon a few others that I think have adopted the same principal. They're pretty good. I've got a few of my bikes I'll be sending in to them. Most come from Cyclo Friend.
Here's the list;

Single Speed Gallery
Current Classic Gallery
Cyclo-cross Gallery
Work Bike Gallery
Recumbent Blog Gallery
Fully Loaded Touring Bike Gallery
and of course: Fixed Gear Gallery

Go ahead, waste the rest of your day.

Cheers.

Long Exposure Time

New Camera

I've been using a Xacti 5mp camera for my point and shoot that I carry everywhere with me. It still works fine, but I'm not entirely happy with it. I was quite happy with it until I saw Vik's little canon that he uses. The area that I notice his camera excelled was low light conditions and indoor photos without a flash. I've got a nice Canon 20D, but that's not something that you carry around with you everywhere. I like having a camera on me everywhere I go. I usually take at least several photos everyday, just for fun. Love the digital revolution huh.

Anyway, here is a picture of my old Xacti. It'll be getting replaced with a Canon PowerShot SD1000 ELPH 7.1mp point and shoot. I'll still keep the ole Xacty around for times where camera damage or exposing it to harsh circumstances is inevitable. Other than that, may it rest in peace.

So far I'm really liking the easy features of this little camera. Switching from normal focus to macro is 10x faster than the Xacti and simply a matter of hitting one button twice. On the Xacti I ended up having to go through the menus option, way too much work for a lazy person like me. I haven't even had this new canon for 24hrs and I've hardly started playing with it. But, already I'm loving this little camera. Some of the best air miles I've ever spent.
I really love the size of it too. Perfect for a Jersey pocket or seat bag. I would say that I take more photos while cycling than any other time. Here's a few shot to give you an idea of it's nice compact size.

Thanks for the tip Vik.

Cheers.

Chinook Arch

It's taking away our snow!! Horse Hockey!

Getting ready for tomorrow

Several things. First the photo project. It just turns out that I'll be on the road for the better part of the day. No work, just driving to America. This morning I was driving to work, and couldn't resist the morning sunrise again. When you take it in all summer, than don't get to enjoy it, and all of a sudden have it again, it reminds you of why you like it so much. One of my favorite things is watching a good sunrise.
Second, our annual trip to Great Falls, MT. Every year my wife’s family have a mini reunion in Great Falls Montana. I think it's just an excuse to go shopping. I've grown to enjoy these trips we do. Last year we bought my wife a decent Trek road bike. This year, well, we won't be buying any bikes, but I do hope to look at the new Schwinn Madison Fixie. With the CDN dollar being $1.10 this morning to the US, and with American prices already being lower than Canadian, I think we will certainly be dumping some dollars into the local GF economy. Massive savings can be had all around. Of course one of my favorite reasons to go there is to get my yearly stock of Fat Tire Amber Ale. Fine tasty beer!

Back to the photo side of blogging, last week I found a vintage Konica SLR camera at the local recycling yard while I was taking back a truck load of cardboard from our new appliances. It seems to work fine. All the clicky things click, the spinney things spin, and the focus things focus. I was surprised to learn that we didn't even have any rolls of 35mm film kicking around. Just another sign of the digital age I suppose. The camera was in a draw string mesh bag with a 70-200 telephoto lens and a wide angle lens, as well as the standard 28-70 lens on the camera. They all work great and I was amazed at how large of view the wide angle gives. This is one that I’m looking forward to playing with. It seems to be so much of the time I want to capture in a picture what’s just outside of the frame. Maybe I’ll be buying a wide angle for my Canon 20D in Great Falls, who knows. It would be really handy for documenting my house project, when you want to take pictures of how a room turned out, but can only get 5 feet of one wall. Yep, I think the next lens I’d like for the Canon will be a wide angle.
Anyway, tomorrow, start checking into 12hrs for the posts that will be coming in. So far I think we’ve got 17 people signed up. Woot!!!!!

Progress

Okay, so there are some folks interested and that's a good thing. I think we'll do it in Blogger, just to keep it clean and easy. I've got some of your email address, and have sent out the invites to the folks who've given me their address. For those who want in, email me: jeromebike(at)gmail(dot)com. I'll send you an invitation to be a blog author!

So far 7 or 8 people are in. Any suggestions on the date? I'm thinking in the next month sometime, but I'm open to suggestions.

Cheers

I have an idea

Well, it's not my idea, just one that I would like to relay to all you who ride and blog and take pictures. Here it is:

A picture an hour, for 12 hours, from people all over the place. Many of you know that this comes right from FGG and their 24hrs of Fixed Gear Gallery Forum. They did a project where different people would take pictures of their day one hour apart. Regardless of whether or not it was about bikes. Just a series of pictures to share little parts of your day. I was thinking if we could band together and pick a date in the future, giving ourselves enough time to get as many people in on it as possible, and even set up a designated blog where people could upload their photos. We could have as many contributors as possible. I've met several bloggers, many other bloggers have met or already know other bloggers, and if we could get them all involved, we could get a pretty neat project on the go.

I think it would be really cool to have a blog that you could go to and see what November 20th (arbitrarily) would look like from 8am to 8pm (arbitrarily) from places all across North America.
The more people could get together on this, the better. While there are some logistics to work out I think it could be pretty neat.

Some of the logistics I am thinking about would be this: If we could get all those interested as members of a shared blog - 12 Hours in Photos - (I've named one, but if we didn't use that one my feeling wouldn't be hurt) so that after the pictures have been taken, we can all upload them and have them there. We should come up with some protocols on how they are labeled (probably your name and where you are from as the title?) and limit the verbage. Actually I think for it to be a true photo project, we should not have any verbage. Simply 12 pictures at as close to 1 hour intervals as you can do. Be creative. If you're sitting at your desk, take a picture of your desk, or an object on your desk, or the view from your window in a creative manner. Great examples are over at the FGG. One important rule, keep it clean. No sick or perverted pics. This is something that I would like everyone to be able to enjoy.

What do you all think? If someone out there has a burning desire to manage this (set up the blog, make sure all who want in are sent invitations to be team members of the blog, etc, let me know. Even in my own little bloggy world I can think of people who I'd love to see their pictures; Doug, Vik, Jeff, Smudgemo,Tim, Rigtenzin, the ever hiding Jim Thill, Jeff, Steve and the list goes on and on.

I certainly don't mind managing it and if you're in, you can email me at Jeromebike@gmail.com. I'll send an invite and make you a member. Put in the subject field of your email "12hrs"

Would this be something better done with something like a flickr feed? The thing I like about a blog is that they will all be on one page.

Anyway, I was just throwing this idea out there and would like to see what yall think. No date in mind, no times in mind, really not much other then a skeletal outline of an idea. Let me know your thoughts and spread the word around. This might just turn into something cool.

Peace.

Riding the Prairies

There is Beauty in the Fall

Truck for sale
Morning light
Fall colours can be spectacular on the prairies