Vahur

On a golf tour in Ireland, Tiger Woods drives his BMW into a petrol station in a remote part of the Irish countryside. The pump attendant who obviously knows nothing about golf, greets him in a typical Irish manner completely unaware of who the golf pro is. “Top of the mornin to yer, sir” says the attendant. Tiger nods a quick ‘hello’ and bends forward to pick up the nozzle. As he does so, two tees fall out of his shirt pocket onto the ground. “What are those”, asks the attendant. “They’re called tees” replies Tiger. “Well, what on God’s earth are dey for.” inquires the Irishman. “They’re for resting my balls on when I’m driving”, says Tiger. “****in Jaysus”, says the Irishman, “BMW thinks of everything.”

D'oh, I thought that this thread is something similar to pirelli calendar :D Sry, it's Friday night here ;)

IMO there is no big difference between macbook or macbook pro for photo editing: they both seem to have TFT panel (IMO panel is most important for photo editing), so external calibrated monitor is must for precision work. Both MacBook and MacBookPro have more than enought processing and graphic power for photo-editing so other things equal I'd prefer smaller and more lightweight MacBook. /me half-way into mac-land with BIG and shiny 23" Cinema display :)

I don't use tunes during riding, but if I were using, then probably something in 3/4 metric (for metric-challenged: it's waltz :D), as it goes well with riding: edge (change)-push-pull, edge-push-pull, edge-push-pull.

Google can do everything and then some. Except teaching you, how to fly..Oh, wait a minute: http://marco-za.blogspot.com/2007/08/google-earth-flight-simulator.html

US $300,100.00 For this money one could spend ca. $30 for booze each day for next 30 years instead of buying one small bottle of beer with questionable quality! Some people have got priorities all wrong! Interesting, will it hit million in the end....

Yes, Aspen is good option, as it probably does not have weather issues due to its location and altitude. If Whistler does not get better reviews ;) , then I might try Aspen once again (February 2004 trip with pureboarding team is worth remembering ). One thing that puts me slightly off from it is dates, as they get quite close to my already half-planned trip to Zinal... Anyway, I'm bored and tired from work and excessive heat and some daydreaming about nice trip over big pond doesn't hurt :D

Hi! As title says: how good is Whistler/Blackcomb area for carving in the beginning of February? How crowded it will be? Is there any good slopes for carving or just moguls? How does it compare to Aspen area? From map seems like lot of trails are between trees, thus riding on overcast day won't probably be problem there? Weather will be gamble probably (WSC in January 2005 was quite bad in this regard, IIRC), so I won't ask about it, one can just hope :D One travel agency here is organizing trip to Whistler in next winter and I'm considering participation (taking it as warmup for ECS :P). It will cost me arm and leg, but what the h3ll, living only once

Yeah, OK, I think that it bears down to time zone difference, at least here we have some 5+ hours ago weekend started. :D

2 feet is better than 55 inches? Or is it other way? :rolleyes: :D

Hmm, I don't recall anything special done, but here is my setting anyway: Nikon D200, lens was Nikkor AF-S 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 VR. I used aperture priority and aperture was closed down ca. 1 stop from maximum to improve lens resolution (tests indicate, that this lens is OK in 70-200 range wide open, beyond that it needs to be stopped down to achieve better results, especially in corners), additionally I tried to keep zoom within 70-200 range. All the other settings were more-or-less default/automatic: image optimization was normal (by default nikon seems not to sharpen JPG images enough, thus it was done in postprocessing), auto white balance, ISO 100. Nikon has nice auto-contrast mode, which adjusts contrast according to scene and it was used. In case of canon I'd probably go with low contrast to improve dynamic range. Images were taken in high-speed (5 fps) mode, so it was matter of timing to get pictures I wanted. Nikon matrix metering has programmed knowledge that on Earth maximum EV is about 17, thus no exposure compensation is needed in case of sunny day, in cloudy day exposure compensation +0.3..+1.0 is needed to keep histogram on right and snow white instead of gray. During shooting I initially look to couple of first images to check their histogram and adjust exp. compensation if needed, afterward it will be only shooting. In postprocessing I just cropped, adjusted histogram (to keep blacks black and whites white, additionally I compressed midtones to leave more dynamic range to high end in order to bring out snow on slope and low end to bring out usually dark clothing and see body position better), resized to 900x600 and sharpened. In order to get good results some practice is needed and DSLR is must IMO: I tried with compact camera, but it's not up to the task: too slow, not enough resolution, small pixel pitch results in poor contrast, LCD is unusable for burst mode/in cold conditions/under sunlight. DSLR, especially semipro cameras like Nikon D200 and Canons 20D/30D are much better in this regard, providing this much-needed tactile feedback.

I made these photos to share the passion and personal/non-commercial use is OK by me.

Last week ca. 20 carvers from Norway, Finland and Estonia participated in Oppdal Carving Camp in Oppdal, Norway. Some images are available at my site: http://carving.grewu.org/ojankaivajat/2007/oppdal/index.htm All the carving images are taken on upper part of Vangslia's World cup slope, which is quite steep (my guesstimate would be something around 40%). Weather was quite varying with strong wind on Tuesday (it can be seen on images) and sun alternating with cloudy weather, thus riding images were taken only on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thanks to Pokkis for organizing this event and all participant who made it something to remember.

Nice images. Only grip is that sun is from back and most of riders are from shadowed side photographed. But whats up with front binding here: http://picasaweb.google.com/michaud.jack/Cannon/photo#5037171383796887106

Hi, Uku. That's what I suggest: avoid flats. If you have to sit and get up in really flats, then maybe it's easier to do it rear leg free and step in (or close bail in case of non-stepin bindings) while you are up and and standing or riding with slow speed. But if you want to do it without freeing rear leg, then I've used grabbing method: grab your board with your rear hand from toeside (or should I say frontside? Nah, toeside was correct termin, I believe :D ) and push yourself up with your front hand. However, this doesn't work after lunch, as full stomach does not allow you to bend forward enough :D Edit: Bullwings beat me with same advice...

I see it more like different school thing : prerotation is taught in swiss snowboard school to total beginners (at least such impression I got by looking at tuition groups) whereas US school prefers "The Norm"? And Canada seems to be more rotation-oriented?. EC is just extreme example of rotation technique and steep slope. Me personally likes (pre)rotation technique, as it seems very fluid and natural when applied correctly. Of course in some situations (moguls, ice) one is better off with more efficient or different technique (Norm, counter-rotation or french-upper-body-fixed-to-fall-line), but I'm not the person, who prefers to ride in such conditions (is there such riders at all?), thus swiss rotation style is the way to go for me.

Many of the pictures were taken with a 2X Teleconverter in front of the lens I assume that you mean, that teleconverter was not in front, but between body and lens? If you plan to do a lot of sports, I'd avoid the new 70-300. This new 70-300 seems actually quite nice lens optically (sharpness/contrast), at least up to 200 mm, so it's quite good lightweight alternative to big and heavy 70-200 f/2.8. But I agree, that 70-300 won't be best lens for sport in general due to its small maximum aperture, but I believe, that for shooting snowboarding/carving it will be OK, as in sunshine there is enough light to shoot f/8 and still get fast enough shutter speed to stop motion (1/500-1/1000). Of course if there is need to have photo in any condition (even on cloudy day), then f/2.8 lens is a must, but fortunately photography is hobby for me and I can choose whether to photograph or not, so I'll take my camera along only on sunny days.

Thanks for credit! I have also D200 (these images were taken with it) and its resolution puts indeed most of lens to their limit, as there is only small number of lens, which outresolve this sensor. This Sigma seemed quite OK in mid-distance shots (as in page mentioned above), especially when you resize this 10 Mpix image to 900x600 with little crop (or no crop at all) for web viewing, but most of long-distance shots (which will be viewed almost at 100%) lacked detail. And worst part was that ca. 10 images were completely black, as during zooming lens lost connection with body . This never happened with Nikkor lens. Sorry for OT drift, as this thread was about your nice images and SES after all.

Very well captured moments and with good quality, regardless of suboptimal weather. OT: what lens was used? From pictures it appears to be 70-200 f/2.8, I assume that it's Nikkor lens, not Sigma? Sigma has slightly warm color cast, whereas Nikkor has neutral, as it seems to be in pictures. I tried Sigma's 50-150 f/2.8, but results were disappointing, thus now I'm pondering whether to use Nikkor 70-200 for best results (its weight and size are main consideration factors, it will be quite tiresome to ride and shoot with this beast all day) or try Nikkor's new 70-300 for my next photo "assignment"...

This is EC carving Mecca: Zinal. But I won't consider this slope very wide, wide would be slope like this: XXX secret carving place

Nah, it depends from board angle and speed IMO. Da magnificent sprays I've seen recently happened from narrow plasma board in last EC session: Antti with Plasma Another pic

It's lens fault actually, as vignetting exists even without filter. DX design is at fault here (but not only, as I've observed quite strong vignetting also with Nikon's AF-S 24-120 VR lens, which is full frame lens. ). If you shoot NEF and have Nikon's Capture/Capture NX, then it can be eliminated quite easily (probably other software can be used as well, but no personal experience here). This vignetting was main reason, why I sold my kit lens along with D70 (upgraded to D200 ).

OK, this sentence was totally unnecessary. At least for all the simple mortals, who do not live in heaven (like Summit County seems to be) and have to wait for snow another couple of months as minimum...

Once upon time I created poster for 25x38 cm printout @300dpi (in inches it makes something like 10"x15", but you can go higher, as you do not need 300 dpi for posters): http://carving.grewu.org/poster/ When I look at it now, then I'd do couple of things differently, but this was my first try to blend several images into one and I'm more-or-less satisfied with result. And in case someone wonders, what the heck "ojankaivajat" means, then it's "trench diggers" in Finnish. All the riders are Finns and this poster is devoted to Finnish carving forum, leaded by Pokkis. Feel free to print it out and put on the wall. But no commercial usage, please!

Aha, that's how this legendary east-coast icy slope looks