Scattered Thoughts . . .

I 've been out on my new bike more than a few times over the past couple of weeks since the bike arrived.  Some of these times, I mounted my Sony X3000 action camera on the handlebars.  This is a pretty nice little action camera.   Actually, I captured some underwater video of Kenzie and Lukey in the pool in Dayton earlier this summer that I haven't done anything with yet.  I need to revisit all those photos and video from that trip and share some of that here.   Anyway, back to my recent bike rides this autumn and having cameras with me during the rides... I didn't keep this little action camera running continuously but I did get some decent footage ten to twenty minutes at a time.  My plan was to eventually cut the long videos into four or five second clips of interest and then put together a video of those short clips.  I really didn't spent a whole lot of time on this but I managed to get a video put together this morning. ...

I was feeling relatively well this morning and the weather was very nice so I wandered out on my bike this morning for some exercise and photography.  I quickly took my morning dose of medications, had an English muffin and some iced tea then packed up a backpack with emergency medications and a little bit of photography gear.  Then I grabbed my helmet and backpack and headed out the door to my bike.   A small issue arose with my bike on this ride.  The gears were a little wonky today.  I need to adjust my rear derailleur because, on its own without any input from me, my bike kept changing gears on me when in the range of around gears three to five.  In the big scheme of things this really is a small issue.  It is just a matter of finding the time and energy to fine tune that rear derailleur again.  Actually, I need to spend some time refreshing my memory on how to make this adjustment first which adds some time to the whole task. Unlike my ...

I went on a longer bike ride this morning and it's only the evening but I am already feeling the consequences!   The ride this morning had a lot more hills to climb and, clearly, I was not yet ready for that.  After a week of rain, however, it was nice to get back out on the new bike.  I'm really liking this bicycle after all the upgrades I have added since it arrived. This time, I loaded up my photography backpack with three different cameras for this ride.  Unfortunately, I ran into some problems. The first problem is that the primary location where I wanted to photograph is now mostly obscured by trees that have grown significantly over the past few years.  This wasn't the end of the world but it was disappointing. The next problem is there were people everywhere and I was hoping to capture landscape photos devoid of people.  Oh yeah...  the traffic on this Sunday morning was insane too!  They were all Vermont license plates so I can't ev...

I went on a couple of short bike rides the other day.  The weather was nice and I was feeling fairly well so I figured I better get out on the bike before it is too cold and the bike is stored away until April or May.   I'm still trying to figure out the best way to carry a little bit of photography gear while riding.   The problem is that I want to have easy access to this gear and, preferably, easy access to this gear without having to completely get off my bike.  I'll stop and stand, of course, while straddling the bike but I'd prefer to not have to get completely off the bike, take off a backpack, and dig into the backpack on the ground...  shoot a few photos...  then put everything away again, put the backpack on, and then get on the bike again.  Just typing that wears me out! I've tried a few different options over the past week but I'm not completely satisfied with anything I've tried so far.  Everything seems to be less than ide...

I wrote a few days ago about getting a new bicycle.  Each day, a new upgraded part arrives for this new bicycle so, little by little, I've been upgrading this rather basic bicycle.  I chose this specific bicycle because it had some features I wanted, the price was right, it was a larger model and I knew I wanted disc brakes of some sort.  I've had a difficult time finding larger bikes in summertime but a few popped up online after Labor Day.   Unfortunately, this bike arrived with giant fluorescent orange lettering across the whole bike frame.  In my opinion, the color orange is suitable for only oranges, pumpkins and some autumn leaves.  Fluorescent orange is not suitable for anything and should be eliminated as a color.  One of the first things I did was repaint the frame to cover up this fluorescent orange lettering.  The bike was already gray so all I had to do with order a flat gray primer and spray over the lettering.  The color m...

W e had to head up to the hospital yesterday (for me) and, as always, I brought one of my cameras along in case I saw anything worth capturing.  This time I grabbed my compact Fuji X30 camera with its fixed zoom lens.   For those interested, the Fuji X30 is a small camera with classic rangefinder camera styling that was released about 12 years ago.  It has a fixed lens so there is no need for carrying extra lenses.  The disadvantage of this camera is the sensor is smaller than the sensors in my other cameras so the tonal quality isn't as nice as my other cameras.  Nevertheless, it does capture some nice images...  certainly better than any cellphone. Since I was sitting in the passenger seat of the car while we were driving on the highway, the car was moving at 65mph while I was shooting photos.  This meant I needed as high a shutter speed as I could get to avoid any motion blurring due to our speed as well as due to bumps.  Sheila's Honda Ac...