(and other updates)

Wow. I just got home from the most amazing bike tour of my life (thus far) and am freshly showered and fed. I plugged in one of the (six) cameras from the trip and began downloading photos before my shower and, 20 minutes later, things are only 1/3 done. I’ve got lots and lots of photos to wade through, as well as a few other updates to post, so stay tuned!

To celebrate Labor Day weekend, my partner in adventures and I went on a bikecamping excursion up at Mt. Ashland. I had work on Saturday at Flywheel Bicycle Solutions and, after staying late with a customer, decided we should probably forgo riding up to the campground that evening in favor of getting there before dark. Luckily my parents happily volunteered to ferry us the 5,000 feet up, bring my little nephew along for the ride!

We set up camp at sunset on Saturday and woke up to a beautiful morning the next day. Coffee and breakfast followed, then a walk up to Rabbit Ears—complete with beautifully lit wildflowers and cartwheels on the forest service road. Since the Mt. Ashland Campground doesn’t have water, we decided to ride the 2,500 feet down to Callahan’s for water and chocolate cake. Riding back up to camp was hot, but beautiful. The night’s sunset was spectacular and the ride on Monday was 16 miles of downhill! Below are a few pics I snapped from the weekend with my little LX-5.

Packing for a weeklong trip down the Oregon coast now . . !

While I was down in Santa Rosa, CA for the Fourth I got to see a backyard performance by Church, a marching band. They are so much fun and have so much energy—keep your eyes out for that name, you’ll be seeing it more! Even though they performed in a back yard and didn’t have room to . . . ya know . . . march, they were still awesome. Slideshow after the break.

In and around Ashland!!

. . .  then there might be something wrong with you.

2012 U.S. National Cyclocross Championships (Elite Women) from In The Crosshairs on Vimeo.

I decided to pull the trigger on a electronic viewfinder (EVF) and set of lens filters for my Panasonic LX-5 camera and am incredibly pleased with the results! Two small upgrades (the viewfinder and the ability to mount filters) give the camera a whole new personality!

I began to learn about photography with an entry-level Canon DSLR and really enjoy the feeling of bringing the camera up to the eye to frame and shoot; the LX-5 came only with an LCD screen, but with an accessory hot-shoe that allows the installation of an aftermarket EVF. The EVF displays the camera settings and gives a preview of what the exposure will look like.

I wound up buying all the filters that Panasonic offers: an ND filter, which lowers the intensity of light; a polarizing filter, or circular polarizer, which filters the light in such a way that the reflection off of bodies of water is reduced and the sky is darkened instead of blown-out; and a basic UV filter which protects the lens from . . . UV rays, but more so dust and dirt and what not.

The polarizing filter should prove fun for landscape and/or water shots and the ND filter helps to create a nice blur effect in the daytime. The UV filter is really just a protector. Interestingly, the adaptor-mount also acts as a lens hood, which will supposedly help to reduce lens flare—in reality, though, it just helps to fingers and what not out of the view of the lens.

Here are a few test shots. Unfortunately I wasn’t in a setting that provided for a nice panoramic view to test the polarizer on, so I guess I’ll just have to ride my touring bike up into the watershed again to really try things out!

Enjoy.

A few recent photographs from a ride in the woods on big wheels and small tires!

TimeScapes 4K from Tom Lowe on Vimeo.

Well, this is making its rounds on the internets . . . so check it out! Animation in real time!