Vahur

Everything I know I have learned here :D Well, maybe not everything, but Time-lapse photo techniques for sure

Years ago I was witness for same problems: one guy who just started riding rode quite well on toesides but on heelsides it was more problematic, somewhat similar to OP problems: long turns ending with skidding. I took with my camera sequences and stitched them together. Here they are, hopefully someone with more experience can comment and point out issues from these sequences, maybe it could help OP and others. P.S. I post links to images instead embedding them, as they are very wide, >5000 pix and embedding would probably destroy readability of thread. Sizes are 600 and 700 kB. P.P.S. Hopefully rider does not mind, to his praise I have to add that his riding is up to another level (now well above mine) and he goes without problems on EC-qualified black slopes, both toeside and heelside. http://carving.grewu.org/misc/hk1.jpg http://carving.grewu.org/misc/hk2.jpg

Dude, you lost your second ski Nice riding. And seems like you are able to recover nicely from EC turn with such narrow board.

I'm sure that more experienced riders will give you advice but here is my story (from rider with average 1-3 riding weeks a 5 days per winter): I had also problems with rear leg's heel: it went quite sore after riding 2-3 days and I had to tape it quite heavily after this in order to ride at all. But now it seems like I don't have such problem anymore. So what's changed? Board is same, boots and inner boots are same, bindings are same, binding angles and stance width is more-or-less same. The only change I could identify is my riding position and technique: when I had my heel problems, then I felt how my feet were pressing my boot's cuff during riding (i.e. I twisted my legs quite strong to put board on edge) and this was probably cause for heel issues, as such leg twistings caused heel movement within boot and swell from friction. Now I try to follow the racing posture advice: "centered and aligned" stance, where body does not hang from boot cuff to move the board (which would means that body is out of alignment with feet) and majority of pressure and sensation should be on bottom of feet (as quoted from carving and racing manual). HTH

+vail skier is #10.

Use the force, erm, angulation: Physics of a Snowboard Carved Turn

Look into turn, otherwise you turn into where you look.

Nice photos, but it would have been better, if they were "corrected proofs" :) I.e. I'd rise brightness in shadow area in photos where riders wear dark cloth: right now cloth is severly underexposed and it's hard to see body/leg position. After all, we look at these photos to assess rider's position, right?

Nice turns indeed, but he (or she?) missed several gates. So I'd conclude that one can carve with soft gear, but running course is not possible :D

I think that this issue had come up at least couple of times in this forum. And leash is to prevent run-away board when boots are not strapped/clicked/bailed to bindings, not to help unlikely cases when equipment fails. I've seen run-away board (one guy lost it while strapping) and I don't want to see anything like that never again: fortunately all this board caused was hitting skier's boots in relatively level hill and causing skier to fall without injury, but if this had happened on steeper slope then getting hit by such missile could mean wheel-chair (when hit to spine) or decapitation (when hit to neck). Here is another example of reason to use leash and keep yourself from getting into Darwin award list: http://www.bomberonline.com/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=212510&postcount=6

Don't know whether I'm addicted or not, as I never tried it :D

Right now it seems that to count all the orders I don't have to remove my socks, fingers are enough :D So it seems like I lost very little by releasing book with zero profit...

Right now I have D300 (bought Dec, 2007) and D700 (just bought second-hand, had just couple of test shots, but for sure it's one of the best cameras for low-light photography available right now). My Nikkor lenses are: AF-S 24-70 (damn, this is sharp even wide open, though VR version would have been better!), Nikkor 70-200 (very good on DX, haven't tested on FX where reportedly it has corner problems around 200 mm. But this shouldn't affect carving photos, as in most cases action in in the middle of frame ;), Nikkor 85 f/1.8 (used in low-light concert photography, was not convinced in DX, but expect to perform better on D700), Nikkor AF-S 70-300 VR (light and quite good optically up to 200 mm, VR is bonus). In DX I have: 17-55 f/2.8 (which I probably sell), Sigma 30 f/1.4 (I liked it for low-light photography but with D700 I see no need for it so it goes as well) Tokina 12-24 f/4 (OK lens, but will be replaced probably with FX wide-angle). With all the money put into lenses and cameras good pictures should be "sure thing" but for some reason I don't see it. Maybe I should send them all into service, as they seem to be broken :D

IMO it's quite hard not to be overtaken while carving: if you carve perfect semicircles, then your distance will be pi/2 times longer than straightliner's and consecuently you have to rider pi/2 times faster than straightliner :D Here in one first-hand experience which shows that being aware of surrounding is good thing: I was riding in late evening. I rode on left side of slope and on toeside turn (being regular this meant that sideline of slope was after turn initiation invisible for me) heard that something hit my board. I was quite surprised as couple of turns earlier I looked back and saw none coming so at first I thought that I hit rock or ice cubicle. However, I looked over my shoulder and saw how skier in his 60-ies makes yard sale of his equipment by rolling and tumbling. Apparently he came to slope from side and hit my board's base and lost control. I stopped and made sure that he is OK, then continued my ride. So nothing special about this event, but it could have been worse and if I had headphones then I would have been completely oblivious about this event and let him as he were: I just heard this hit, didn't feel anything on board.

No, never and not at all. In this very order: IMO it's dangerous to be cut out of environment and it seems to me that using tunes will disable work of inner ear, which is used for sensing body balance and speed. Additionally I just love sound of nature around me and sound of snowboard's cutting into pure carve:1luvu:

Don't know about sales yet, as I've published this project on Tuesday this week and blurb provides sales information when book is printed and they actually charge for services. This takes time: in my case it took 8 days from placing order to notice that book is printed and shipped (and another 10 days for standard shipping). But if you were interested about my income from publishing this book then profit will be $0.00 regardless from number of orders: as I wrote in my homepage the book's price is Blurb's base price (for printing, shipping and taxes), which means that I don't get any income from it. Why? Because photography and snowboarding are my hobbies and hobbies are not supposed to produce incomes, only expenses ;) Another reason is that I want to provide this book as contribution to hardbooting community in order "to promote art and science of snowboard carving" Without those people who pay ridiculous prices for beer in Alps such images were not possible :) But I'm sure that you have quite solid portfolio of carving images (and reputation in relevant circles) so I believe that if you decide to publish book of carving photographs then you have lot of orders...

2 replies/objections to my claim for uninterest of extreme carving and both from Canada :) . Hmm, is it indication of something?

I know that extremecarving technique has of little interest here among members. But for those few who have interest in body dragging following 2 links might be useful: http://carving.grewu.org/gallery/ECS_Book/index.htm http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/407113 P.S. Hopefully such shameless self-promoting spam is not against forum rulz here

Sigma makes decent lens but the 70-200 copy I had (bought in 2005 IIRC) was not so good wide open and as I've read from reviews it's quite common. Nikon's 70-200 is quite an exception in this regard, as it's quite sharp already at maximum aperture and it gets even better from there on. It could be that newer Sigmas are better in this regard, but I don't care anymore as I have Nikkor now. Nikkor's focusing speed is good enough for me and VR is good addition to this lens, making it usable for low-light sports photography (e.g. chess :) ) Of course if there is enough light for shooting with lens stopped down 1-2 stops then Sigma is good choice.

Nice video. Is rider in red jacket Jack?

Googling "Jessica Gregorie" turns up this link: http://www.sierrasun.com/article/20071118/NEWS/71118005 Hardly skiing accident. And seems like she had no leash? I see no ways how resort management could have avoided such accident short of blocking all the access outside of slope by building walls (well-padded to avoid accidents when people hit them!) around slopes. And I don't see either, how resort management can avoid death in tree wells. IMO people should take responsibilities for their actions, not expect that someone else takes care of everything.

Umm, don't they have to have license plates or something to ride in public roads like this? Umm, is this next Jackass movie? Umm, WTF??? Props to riders, not everyone can ride like this

I don't mind but IMO your image has too much saturation and rider's face is not natural. One factor is also the fact that face is underexposed and increased contrast tends to increase perceptually saturation in dark areas. And I'd remove color cast from snow: although snow is not always white (especially in shadowed areas/overcast situations) it seems more natural to keep it white. So my version would be like this (adjusted white point, set neutral point, reduced saturation and increased brightness for face in Nikon Capture NX which I use almost exclusively for post-processing and which is IMO much better for photo editing than anything else thanks to very powerful U-point technology):

Don't have Photoshop, so can't do photoshopping :) This image is taken on overcast day, this explains its gray outlook and flat light. All the pictures in my website from this Oppdal camp had only crop/resize/sharpen in order to post images ASAP for waiting hordes, so I agree that image could be enhanced in post-processing. One thing which comes into mind is setting white point, but not in full extent as IMO using full histogram for such overcast-day photos makes them unrealistic. Or is there something else which could be improved? Critics/comments to my photos always welcomed! BTW, he has kid, just well-taught :D