bobble

i had some slight issues with exposures but i think overall they turned out okay.

yeah, i was ticked. i was more ticked at the instructor. it meant i had to reset the cameras. i get no respect... not even from little kids. bad things are always happening to me. i think karma is telling me i gotta start doing good things. i better start making a list of all my bad deeds. my name is bob.

i was out this sunday trying to take more stereophotos. oldkey has posted a photo with me using the rig. thanks oldkey. i got closer to the action, i hope to post more photos tomorrow evening.

yeah, i'm new at film SLR cameras. someday, digital SLR. the thing was troubling me today was why there would be a difference is exposure measurements. i kept comparing each camera to the same focal point, those slalom posts and yet they registered differently. i think i should have gone used the same f/stop and shutter settings as the one with the lower exposure reading - better to be under than over exposed. i tried it on a few. then i did it where i compensated for the exposure. i'm hoping more will turn out than last time. i had sync problems that i believed were due to the autofocus function. today i used the autofocus to calibrate the lens on the posts, then turned it to manual. i had no mis-fires like last time. someone at work who's a photographer was telling me i should be using 200 speed film. thats what i used today. he was saying that faster film just picks up noise and is grainy. today the shutter speed with 200 ISO was about 1/750th of a second. i love that "profiles in courage" shot of me. thanks oldkey. i'm sure that was the run where i overcorrected and went back up the hill.

temp early this morning was -1F with a -19F windchill. definitely cold. right now at 3pm its about 7F. snow was hard but very good. trent and karl set up a slalom course. it was probably one of the few times i could carve around those stubbies. i did have some problems but it was a good time. thanks trent and karl. i brought out the 3d camera gear. the slalom course was ideal. i hope the pictures turn out. something i don't quite understand about film cameras is the exposure reading. i couldn't figure out why one camera had a 1/2 stop higher exposure reading than the other. so i compensated by adjusting the aperture on one so the readings matched. i think it could be that one camera is not calibrated like the other. i think what i should have done is picked the same aperture and see what happens. if anyone has ideas, please chime in. later i had set up my camera on crossroads to take a shot of karl, trent, and jessie. i think i got a shot of wild bill. this lesson group got on the run and started snowplowing right through where i just set up. i had placed my glove as a marker for the crew to carve by me. the lesson group slowly snowplowed around me and proceeded to plow over my glove. one kid dragged it downhill a short distance. i started after the glove and seconds later another kid slowly snowplows over the glove. how ski-tarded do you have to be to snowplow over a glove?!? it must've looked comical from top of the hill. makes me wonder if that instructor purposely guided his minions through my photo-shoot. so, after everyone left, i stayed another hour to get my freak on. i wasn't too cold but definitely tired. the liftie said to me "man! those are some pretty lines!". that made my day.

karl, you have cool toys. all i got is paint shop pro and poor man's version of autocad. i have this booklet on how to draw 3d images. it was sort of the rage for awhile. the author, fritz waack, tried to show how easy it was to create 3d images by using a programmable calculator, the old texas instruments TI 57. the steps are painful to follow but i think with todays CAD tools it would be fairly easy -- nothing to really calculate.

ms. bobble says "oh... ishhh!!!"

went to the beloved mountain of groomed perfection. snow was great. i did a few runs down the backside. there's something of a trough or bowl going down that run. kinda fun on toe-sides. crossroads was a little hectic. ski races again. then there was the ski patrollers doing their red sled drills. i was having a great time. as an added bonus Buck Hill was hosting Jessica Alba Appreciation Day! round of applause. i really wanted to appreciate her but couldn't find jessica out on the runs. capitol idea, anytime!

thanks russ. i had tried the mpls tribune but it didn't go into details other than a name. what run did it occur? i know someone who is paralyzed from a ski accident. he was a very experienced skier. he was out of bounds, lost control, and hit a tree. article reposted here. Duluth police on Monday released the name of a 28-year-old Richfield, Minn., man who died in a skiing accident at Spirit Mountain on Saturday. Andrew Robert LeGrande died after running into a tree. He was not wearing a helmet. “Witnesses seem to say that he came down, lost a ski and tried to regain control when he ran into a tree,” said Duluth police Sgt. Robert Shene, head of the Violent Crimes Unit. “We know from the family that he was a very experienced skier. They don’t want people to think he was skiing crazy. It was just one of those accidents that happened.” Shene said there was a doctor skiing nearby and medical assistance was quickly provided to the victim. Spirit Mountain marketing director Brianna Johnson said the last time a skier was fatally injured at the ski area happened several years before she began working there 11 winters ago. The last skiing fatality may have happened in January 1991, when Daniel Martin fell on the Gandy Dancer run and hit a tree. At least three skiers were fatally injured at Spirit Mountain during the 1980s. In January 1986, Duluth East High School alpine team member Inger Eckman, 13, died after hitting a tree on a training run. She apparently lost control after hitting a slalom gate. The year before Eckman’s death two men were fatally injured in separate accidents. In January 1985, Dave Sawallich, 24, of New Hope, Minn., died of complications four days after he broke both legs when he hit a tree on the slope. In February 1985, Robert Reinert, 22, of St. Cloud, Minn., died after rupturing a heart vessel and his spleen when he hit a tree.

what was the guy's problem? couldn't handle sharing the hill? would be nice if more skiers would learn to carve instead of skating down the hill. what's the point of buying shaped skis if there not using the equipment to its fullest potential. most of the ski carvers on saturday had really low amplitude carves, maybe 2-3 feet wide. i hope that when they're out west they don't ski like that. there were a few that were exceptional.

i was in the orange. i saw you from the lift. i was riding up with russ and saw you and said "whoa, who's that?!?" we craned our necks around. yes, indeed! i wanted to meet up but i had to go in, i was getting to that point where i was tired and going to hurt myself. where do you normally ride? c'mon out to buck on weekend mornings.

friday. went to welch. good conditions prevailed. the only problem was racing was going on. good day for carving although they could do a better grooming job. in the evening i went to duluth. saturday. went to snowboarding on spirit. i was fatigued from riding on friday. ran into russ and ryan up there. morning there was sun, afternoon it went flat. the run next to 4-pipe, scissor bill, had nastar going on. the one over, bindle stiff just plain sucked. not carveable. lots of ice and rollers. went over sky hooker. very carveable but too many racers pseudo-carving down the hill. would it hurt just to let their skis do the carving?!? there were some exceptional ski carvers but they were few. went down sky hooker maybe 3 times. i don't like looking over my shoulder. spent most of the day on 4-pipe or double jaw. on a sad note... a skier hit a tree and died. i don't know what run but i do remember riding the lift around 3pm with russ when we saw a snowmobile gunning down 4-pipe extremely fast. there was flashing lights in the bottom parking lot. apparently the accident occured around 3pm. i didn't find out what happened till the evening news. sunday. started snowing. just went for 1-1/2 hours. too hard to see. it got crowded at 10:30am so i left for home.

the cameras were about 6.25 to 6.5 inches apart. i have two canon film SLRs. i wish i could mount the lenses closer like this example but the tripod mount is off center. they say that the distance from the camera to the subject should be at minimum 30x the lens seperation. that would put it at about 16 feet. kinda hard to see whats going on with hands, legs, board at that distance. i think taking shots when the subject is close looks pretty cool.

carving as a group would be cool. i keep thinking of how to compose a better shot. be kinda cool to get you (karl) doing your jump with someone uphill and in frame. i started looking at the some of the other pictures i took and i realized that the cameras were out of sync. not able to use them for 3d. i'll put them on ofoto. some people will have a hard time "freeviewing" stereograms. i had to scale/crop/zoom the images to fit on bomber. i might not have things at optimal proportions. there's some freeware to create red/blue anaglyphs (where you wear the 3d glasses). i might try that when i get back.

i do have tomorrow off but i think i might be heading to welch tomorrow morning. hope there's sunlight. i posted some 3d pictures on the off topic forum.

and another

i like this one...

here's another.

made a stereogram. to view it, cross your eyes until both images overlap each other.

wish i could go boarding and then go to work. are the boots holding up?

heading up to duluth/spirit this weekend. thought i'd share.

Famos Amos cookies. Available at your local rollerskating rink.

yes, there are two ways of "freeviewing" stereograms. it depends on how the images were joined together. i'll put together both types. one is where you cross your eyes. the other is called parallel viewing and is a little harder to master - you look past the images past your screen. in both methods you'll end up seeing a third image. thats where you focus your attention. eventually your brain locks in on this virtual image and then things start to stand out. some people have difficulty seeing 3d stereograms. i'll be picking up the cds tonite. i'm hoping that i can zoom/crop the images to get better stereograms.

went in the evening till about 8:30pm. it was about 4 degrees. ski races were going on but the hill was fairly empty. snow was great but a little slow. met this really hot chick on the lift. she had pink hair, green eyes, and a non anatomically correct figure. i introduced myself and told her my name is todd. she said her name was erin. we exchanged pleasantries for awhile but then she started talking about car insurance. for some inexplicable reason she bolted from the chairlift midway up our majestic mountain, jumped into a really swank looking car parked on milkrun, and drove off. i never saw her again. LL Cool J

i don't have digital copies yet but some of the pictures turned out fairly decent. not quite ready for prime time but i'll get better at it. there were some technical problems that i think could've been my error. on a couple pictures the cameras didn't fire simultaneously. i think it was the autofocus didn't lock in quick enough. these cameras lock on contrasting colors or brightness. the snow probably threw it off. next time i do this i'll throw a glove out on the run to mark the spot where i'll take the picture. some pictures the subject was a little too far away. i had a picture of jesse partially out of frame that was technically too close (about 6 ft) but its really cool. karl, you need some neon colors. that SR-71 blackbird outfit is too dark. right now i'm using a 3D viewer to look at them. i'm hoping when i get these converted to jpgs that i'll be able to zoom in and crop the images for easier viewing. a bunch of photos have my shadow in it. duh! its going to take me a few days.