Vahur

Yes, sure it is. But it costs an arm and leg and I will spend my money on decent lens(es) instead. Currently I use PaintShopPro and it's quite capable piece of software with price 1/10th of PS. I had no time (read: I'm too lazy) to put up postprocessed pics, the pictures there are just batch-processed (with BreezeBrowser) resized versions of originals without any changes apart from little sharpening. Your modified pic looks better (especially white balance, I have to learn tinkering on that), but I'm not sure about sharpening, in my LCD at work sharpened pictures look quite bad (especially snow) while on CRT at home they look quite normal. So I try not to sharpen very much. Or is it just my LCD?

Hmmm, I'm not sure that I understand what you meant by these pictures? Could you elaborate? On the topic of hair splitting/EC vs. race style/or whatever is moot point here: I have to agree with Zcarver: do whatever pleases you and is not dangering others. Though not so sure about riding within ability, in order to progress you have to ride sometimes over 100% of your ability (or what you think your ability is). Of course in crowded slopes this is not possible.

Hi, Scott! Nice pics! I saw that you shoot with D70 (da camera I have as well). Which lens you used for shooting (EXIF displays 70 mm)? Which ISO was used (shutter speed seems to be quite low, so I guess ISO 200?) Did you use any filter? Seems like you used spot or center-weighted metering with +1.5-2 exp. compensation, what was reason for such setup (any web references for this?). Did you shot JPG or NEF? Did you use any custom curve? I used D70 in Zinal with matrix metering and +0.3 exp. compensation and it seemed to work quite well (but we had sun all the weekend....) Some pics from my shooting: http://web.starman.ee/vkrouverk/zinal/index.htm With such setup exposure seemed to be correct (rejected pics were out of focus or not so well spotted). Only problem was WB, with blue sky snow tends to become quite blue. I shot with saturation set to high, sharpness and contrast set to auto. Sorry for turning this into tech. discussion and wishing nice SES to all the participants, Aspen is probably best place for carving!

Warming up old thread, but maybe someone is interested in technical details for SES: in Zinal I took pics with D70 with following setup: matrix metering with +0.3 exposure correction, auto white balance with -1 correction (to get more warm pictures), program P mode. AF-S, center focus area, continuous shooting mode, JPG, ISO 200 (for action shots, for landscapes I went with NEF and up to 1600 in "cinema" shots). Weather was clear sky, most pictures were taken on sunlit areas. Exposure was ca. 1/1000, aperture 1/8-1/10, Results are here: http://web.starman.ee/vkrouverk/zinal/index.htm Pictures are only resized, no other correction done. Exposure was OK in most of pictures (in shadow or overcast one can add more exposure compensation probably), white balance in some cases too blue (custom with metering from snow would have been perfect, but I was too lazy for that) but mostly OK. For some reason some of pictures were out of focus (they are not shown in my homepage), although AF-S shouldn't allow this according to my understanding, so I'm not sure, whether it was due to too fast moving subject or due to fact that I wasn't able to keep target in focus area (as there was so much light that I could focus on smallest snow trenches)?? Lenses were Nikkor 24-120 AF-S VR with UV filter. 120 seemed to be too short in some cases, so I'm looking for 70(80) - 200 lens next, although f/2.8 lenses with 200 mm length and 1.5 kg are not easy to carry around. Unfortunately Nikon doesn't produce (yet?) suitable for such event lens: something like AF-S 80-200 f/4 with weight <1 kg could be real winner. But seems like Nikon has covered fast and long pro lenses with AF-S options, so maybe more consumer/prosumer lenses in near future (fingers crossed!)... Recommendations for better shots and comments are most welcome!

General tip from shops (board length from chin to nose) is too short for carving and intended probably for freeride/freestyle person with average body build. In carving board length depends generally from riding style (shorter for short turns with smaller sidecut boards, longer for long high-speed turns, in Whistler PGS average board length seemed to be equal to rider's height, in PSL somewhere around the neck) and from weight; in smaller degree from person's height. Here in Bomber is article about board choosing but it does not give any numbers. But I think that something around 170 should be good starting point for carving and powder.

Interesting view to good turn with reference to bone structure. I guess that it's basically same as Chris Klug suggest in his webpage: http://www.chrisklug.com/, from there "Pro Tips" and "Anatomy of a Turn" (it's flash, so no direct link can't be given ).

Where do his boards (old and new) lie in overall stiffness scale, are they in softer side? In older thread NEWS FLASH... Bruce wrote about Kessler titanal boards: So I thought that new boards were softer. Or was there talk about dynamic softness?

So, does it mean, that revolution in snowboarding industry has started and "metal snowboards" are the way to go? Or was it just good athlete with help of home and bit of luck and snowboard which is just little bit better than "ordinary" in bad conditions (in good conditions probably everything that slides and can be kept on edge could be used, including bathroom door :D ) ? Interesting to see, how PSL goes...

I'm sure that here are others, who know this area much better, than I, but here is my suggestion: If you want steeps then Aspen is da place. Best deep runs are probably Ruthie's run and anything below it (right part of mountain, if looking from bottom). If you don't mind walking or have car, then I suggest to take first "Shadow mountain" lift and then Ruthie's lift instead of gondola and you have some free runs in these slopes before others who use gondola, appear there.

Just an guess, but could one part of problem be too stiff boots? If I look at photos, then I see, that you bend your knees, but shins are in vertical position. This leads to moving butt backward and bending upper body forward in order to avoid weight shfiting too back. But if boots are not too stiff, then I think that avoiding hips backward movement and moving knees forward instead during turn could help in maintaining upright position. Something like in this picture: http://bomber.smugmug.com/gallery/136027/6/4966110 ( I tried to find better picture, but most of pictures are taken from front and feet position is not very visible...)

Grey card is quite sure and time-proven method for exposure. But 18% card seems to be myth, light meters are calibrated to 12% ANSI standard instead (18% comes from print world). So if you meter with ANSI calibrated system 18% grey card, then you underexpose picture by half stop. More about that in Thom Hogan site Anyway, if shooting digital, then couple of test shots should give you good idea about correct exposure. Or just add some positive exposure compensation with matrix/full frame metering, if most of frame will be covered with snow. One possibility is to meter exposure from riders cloth and go from there by zone system (if it's dark, then decrease exposure a bit, otherwise increase): carving junkies like to see position of rider and don't care from blown sky or snow. White balance on mountain could be very tricky (blue cast in shadows, reddish in sun), therefore RAW shooting could be best. But it fills buffer and memory card faster and post-processing of hundreds or thousands of pics could become very time-consuming. Easiest would be to set WB after snow (as most people expect snow to be white) and watch out for changing conditions (sun is covered/uncovered with clouds, coming out from shadows etc). /Me good in theory, bad in practice (and therefore entitled to teach others over Net :D )

Yep, you're right and I stand corrected, I pulled this 6-9 out from nowhere. haven't ridden board since March and forgot everything I knew about .., ugh, snowboarding, and then some more.:D Of course some people like quite extraordinary angles (like 55/25) on quite extraordinary boards (like asym #one), but lets not make things too complicated for thread initiator

Rule of thumb for alpine binding setup: rear binding to minimum angle, which does not cause boot overhang from edges, front binding 6-9 degrees more. About lift for heel or toe: it depends and you should try to find out, what works best for you. Some ride without any lift or cant, some prefer wider stance with front foot toe and rear foot heel lift. Generally using lift (and canting) allows for more wider stance than without. Additionally at least for me worked rear heel lifting, if I wanted to ride with boots locked (i.e. not in walk position), without lift I banged my shin and was unable to bend my knees. But now I'd probably use on Silberpfeil similar setup as on Swoard: narrower stance and without any lift or cant, boots unlocked or with soft RAB.

Garage sale generally does not apply to snowboarders, as if they fall, then in one piece with all the equipment. But skiers can create really good yard sale on slope: Item (quantity) =============== Ski (2) Poles (2) Hat (1) Goggles or sunglasses (1) False teeth (1) Glass eye (1) Wooden leg (1) Skier (1) ============== Total: 10 items Thus an order of magnitude more than snowboarder! I have heard term Pinocchio (or making Pinocchio, in Russian there is term Buratino, which is adapted character from original Pinocchio) and it means flying like wooden puppet - cartwheeling or "rag doll" could be synonyms.

This riding on closed slope one by one is called ... umm, racing (at least I believe that this is correct word). Whole slope only for you, all others watching. Not sure about 10 minutes waiting time, usually it takes longer.. On downside is also that they plant poles on track for some reason unknown yet to me. :D

I use Burton mitts (dont know the name, Snap is written on thumb?) and they have no wear sign after last season (some 25 days of hand-dragging). Some positive things about: They don't have seams which would wear out quickly. They are warm They have inner glove, which can be used for taking photos or anything. And be washed easily if turning smelly. They are safer (if you drag your hand into heap of snow, then its less likely that you twist some finger) On negative side is smaller finger mobility, but is that needed? At least I don't miss it.

I'd go with Reevu integrated rear view helmet, if they made it for snowboarding: it would be nice to see, when skiers bomb down behind you. But maybe their motocycle helmet would work for carving as well?:rolleyes: I'm considering to buy their bicycle helmet for next summer...

Yeah, that's a million $ (or taking into account exchange rates, better would be €) question: if I had 1 000 000, then I'd move along to mountains :D Unfortunately not very much info from me as generally I don't ride here: too far for evening riding (230 km or 140 miles from here) crowded as hell on week-ends (lift line is 15 minutes, you can climb to top faster than that on those bunny hills!). So I prefer to go elsewhere, Finland is my preference, as it's near and there is quite big carving community, organizing carving sessions and races. If you are interested, then check out http://www.ojankaivajat.org , there is one english forum as well for non-finnish speakers to get an overview of events. Maybe we can ride sometimes together....

LMAO! But You should post it to the carving community forum instead....

Nice to see, that there are alpine carvers from country, which is even more flat than mine :) Hi to neighbour! Nice pic, but I think that it is somewhat too abstract, IMO for such signs picture should be enough to get the message through. But if I can print it out on good paper and attach somehow to my board, then I might try it (though for my Swoard red color would match better than orange).

Seems like Jack had nothing to do and posted link to Bordy's review under provocative subject title to create heated debate. But unfortunately for him neither Bordy nor Swoard team fell on it :D Anyway, this Swoard review is first board review on hardbooters and I do believe, that if there were more reviews, then all the readers would have accustomed to straightforward and no-salesman-bull**** opinion from him and accepted this without much ado. But now bored from long lack of winter on northern hemisphere carvers got mad like dogs on heated summer day. I'm happy to own Swoard and happy, that Bordy liked this board on slow-to-him (aka Ride the Edge) speeds, this is good enough to me. And if someone can prove I'm wrong by donating better board then I'm ready to change my opinion :D And bottom line: do not attack people, but their opinions! No need to get personal.

Google for noice cancelling headphone, you'll find enough products by this buzzword. I personally prefer to record silence and then play it down with amp's volume turned to the maximum in order to avoid sounds which I don't want to hear :D

If you haven't visited CPT Snowboard Workout Program page, then do it. IMO one of the best pages on this topic and covers almost everything what weekend warrior needs to know...

Contrary to popular belief it seems not to help in tree-well, if you can release from equipment. From http://www.physsportsmed.com/issues/1999/12_99/cadman.htm So your only hope in tree-well is that friend is nearby.

Text in shirt says "Can you do it 6 times in a row like Lance does?" :D Original link: original image link [OT] BTW, if you want to see really good CG (computer generated) images, then check out this photo author's Oyonale site