Panning Aint Easy...

I've made some attempts at "panning" when shooting various events in the past, and Sunday was another attempt to get some keepers. What is panning? Basically its using a slow shutter speed and following the motion of the passing object. If done properly, it gives a blurred background and rider in focus, but that is much easier said than done. Tricky part is that you need to only move the horizontal axis while keeping the vertical as still as possible. Oh and one last thing...You need to match the speed of the object that is passing. Simple right?

I had marginal success on Sunday, but thought I'd share a couple of the highlights.

This one is exactly what I was aiming for, but the focus was on his arm not his face. Close...
If you look closely, in the top left (above the rider's back) you'll see a white object. This is a tree and shows how much the camera was moved while the shutter was open.


This one was pretty successful, I had the sun behind me which helped with the exposure.


This one turned out pretty well


One more

Betty's 07 debut delayed

Friday was scheduled to be the day I finally got Betty the Yeti out of the basement to chew up some Front Range trail goodness. A coworker of mine & I were planning to skip out of work and hit the trails Friday afternoon, but the weather had other things in store for the foothills. We've been in a very unsettled weather pattern, one where it is either raining or its about to rain, for the last week or so.

I did the unthinkable and actually drove myself to work on Friday so I could have transportation to/from the trails without hassle. It took me about 10 minutes to realize that driving yourself pretty much sucks. Traffic wasn't even that bad, but just having to be mentally checked in as opposed to eyes closed and zoned out that early in the morning just wasn't working for me.

So despite driving 35 miles each way and paying $8 to park for the day, the day was a bust. I wasn't going to let the extra effort go unrewarded though, so I skipped out around 2:30 Friday afternoon as I had put in a couple long days already last week. So Betty goes back to the basement temporarily as we wait for some worthy terrain to become available for consumption.

The weekend was pretty much a bust as well. The gloomy, overcast and threatening skies kept us indoors most of the weekend. I got out briefly Sunday morning to catch a couple early classes as the Rocky Mounts Crits in Louisville, CO. I'm not a big fan of crit races (short loops that do lots and lots of laps), but I wanted to test out the new camera with some moving targets. The crit worked perfectly for that since the .6 mile loop had the peloton passing me every couple of minutes.

The new camera is a large leap in performance and quality over my previous one. The pics come out of the camera and need very little post processing. The focusing is greatly improved, as well as the speed of the camera too. It was kind of nice having dual bodies at the race as well, as I could have one with big glass and the other with a wider angle for some panning shots.

So here's a couple random pics from yesterday:

New camera, same pooch

Treated myself to an early birthday present and replaced my very tired (and beat up) Digital Rebel, with the new Rebel XTi. I had been thinking about a 30D, but couldn't justify it and I've run out of patience waiting for the mythical 40D thats been rumored for a year now. So far I'm quite impressed, though I have barely used it thus far.

Here is a quick pic of a forlorn looking Baloo I took last night.

When in doubt...Ride.

With the desk job daily grind, I often get home, grab dinner and then find myself struggling to find the motivation to get on the bike and go ride. When I ultimately get my butt up and go ride, I am 99% of the time very glad I did so. I've come to find that the Niner SS is a great "I don't want to ride, I'd rather be lazy" motivation tool. That bike is a heck of a lot of fun, and the simplicity of the rigid 29er SS just a blast to ride.

So after my long road ride on Saturday, I decided to take it easy on Sunday and do an easier recovery ride around town on the SS. Jill joined me, and we cruised our way across town along the bike paths. We ambled along for about 15 miles while enjoying some new sights and warm temps.



Today, I wasn't feeling great on the way home from work, but after some dinner I felt fine again. I tried to find an excuse not to ride, as I truly wanted to be a lazy slug.

Rain clouds. Wind.

I was not feeling motivated at all, but then I saw Nancy the Niner staring back at me. I told myself I'd just get out for 30-45 minutes, at least I'd be getting out. So I headed out, rain threatening and winds gusting. I rolled around the neighborhood and through the parks, and I was having a great ride and feeling good.

Given the good legs and nice weather, I headed out on the dirt roads for some gravel road cruising. I spun around the lake, seeing as many critters and people out for a evening walk as I did cars and then headed for home. Something about the dirt roads, animals, and wide-open spaces just has a truly calming effect on me. Gone were the day's stresses and back was the joyful feeling of a kid on his bike.




And since today wraps up April for me, I figured I would look back at my totals. Not a great month, but I finished pretty strong. Taking out the skiing from the 1st half of the month, this is what my April ended up totaling:

14 rides (8 Road, 6 29er SS)
322 miles (250 road, 72 29er SS)
20.5 hours ride time (14.5 road, 6 29er SS)
12,500 feet climbing

May is a big month, and I plan to build and progress. Stay tuned...

More Cake

Got to Boulder last night for my 4th (or is it 5th?) Cake concert. Probably the most laid back concert I've ever attended, but Cake sounded great live as always. The Coors Event Center (where CU plays basketball) isn't really a great place to see a concert, but it was nice to just kick back in a chair and enjoy some good music.

The venue wasn't even close to full, which was likely partially due to the fact the concert was only announced two weeks before the show for some strange reason. As always at Cake concerts, the crowd was a mix of frat boys/sorority girls and the older working crowd.

I found it incredibly appropriate to be hearing the lyric of "Is it you or your parents in this income tax bracket?" during their rendition of "Rock and Roll Lifestyle" in the middle of Boulder which is full of Trustafarians living out their college dreams on Daddy's credit cards.

A good set list with a mix of recent and past hits, including one of my favorites that I had never heard live before, "Comfort Eagle". They played most of the radio hits, but the set list was pretty short. They played for about an hour before taking a 2 minute encore break, then playing a quick 3 songs and calling it a night. Definitely not quite the same atmosphere as the Paramount where Sarah & I saw them last, but I wouldn't pass up the opportunity to see one of my favorite bands when they are so close to home.