Gumby

Yes! and Yes!!! guess the neon yellow suit is becoming a trademark. I will email you when I get back.

lol how do I cross-post? Do I just put another post there?

ok thanks guys for the replies! I am replying from my phone on the road so sorry if replies are slow and short. I will try to cross post on the CO forum, thanks. I can't wait to see mountains!!

Hello all, I will be heading to Vail for the first time ever tomorrow. I will be there all this week. I would like suggestions on good runs. If anyone will be there let me know maybe we can ride.

Hey all I got the pictures up online and they are there for your enjoying pleasure. I just want to say it was fun and I enjoyed taking the pictures. I whish they would have let me go up on the hill and whish the light was not so flat but I think the pictues turned out ok. The pictures online are small in size and are not printable. The pictures are Copyrighted but I have no issues with you using the pictures for your pleasure or on forums. I just want my Copyright to be visible. If you require a larger file for a print or cropped version that you want to use let me know the file name and I will put it up. If for some crazy reason you want the full Copyright use let me know we can work something out. If you have a gathering and would like me to come take pictures just let me know I really like Belgian beer!!! . I hope to get out carving with you all again I guess I got the bug again!! Well here is the website: www.michaelmulville.smugmug.com I put up two galleries because the light was so wierd. One gallery is high contrast where the snow is very white and has little texture but the riders look nice. The other is a lower contrast, more like what it actually looked like and has a little more snow texture but overall the picture looks flatter and don't pop like the higher contrast ones. Peace all Michael

Hey all this is Mike the photo guy... I will be letting you know how the images will be let out for public viewing/download soon. I took over 400 pictures and will be downloading them to the computer and going over them for sharpness, color, contrast and doing cropping. I will most likely open up a smugmug account or something similar. I have been needing to do this for some time now anyways. Please be patient and I will let you all know on Bomber when and where. Peace

I would like to see an IRC form of chat also. Anything new on this?

Dave you mentioned your wifes name was Farmer. She wouldn't be related to Erin Farmer from The Brave New Workshop would she? I had recently went to a play by them in St. Paul.

I will be having a small get together of friends Saturday Feb. 5th. Everyone is welcome. No real occasion just a chance for friends to get together (snowboarders and non snowboarders). BYOB. People will start rolling in about 7:30, so if you are in rosemount area and want to stop by please do. My addy is 14520 Shanon Pkwy, Rosemount #207. Michael

I'll be there. and will get paid for it too:). See u all around 9:30!!1

I requested the day off so as long as I get the day I will be there!! Fun Fun P.S. speedzilla :P

BUMP Well I just did, Want to see if there are anymore vids around!!

Dont use iron with steam holes if you can help it. (personal experience) As for everything else I'll let someone with more kowledge help.

Yeah too bad you dont live in my area we could take pictures all day long ;). It's kinda tough to pursuade my wife to sit on hill and take pics of me let alone figure out how to run my camera. You are probably right about the segmented metering, I'm just stuck in my old and trusted ways. I guess when I go digital in a few months I will be able to trust it more. Cheers and keep shooting. Mike

Use of digital has vastly improved the learning curve and made photography easier in some respects. I still use film and have had pretty good luck with grey card albiet 18%, but thats with print film which has a greater latitude than digital. This subject is deep indeed, but it's nice to give advice and get advice on how to take better ppictures so when we are all 70 and cripple we can look back and say thats me ;P. Everyone else please feel free to post techniques and ideas that have produced great pictures for yourselves. Happy Carving Mike

I will plan on going Monday!! I wanted to get a couple days in this weekend so that will be awesome. I will probably be there around 10 am, let me know if you guys are coming and what time so we can hook up. Michael P.S. If anyone else is fortunate enough to have Monday off, Come on down we will rut that place up ;P.

I dont think I will be able to attend the SES though I would love to. My work schedule is kinda screwy in the winter. I think I will take vacation for it next year and all will be well. I've had a few requests by E-mail in addition to the ones here to help, so I'll give some pointers that have helped me and hopefully will help you. I still shoot with film so my learning curve was slow and I had to pay attention to detail so I would get it right. First off, one very important thing in my bag is a "Grey Card", as you might know the light meter in your camera cannot see colors and judges the exposure on about a 18% grey method. Which means that if you were to take a picture of a little black cat in a mountain of white snow your camera meter will see all that white snow and a little black spec and want to average the exposure so the picture is 18% grey. Thats why most of the pictures which are taken in snow, the snow is grey (usually close to 18%). That leads us to the grey card, which I use in high contrast situations to get my exposure right on. I will set my camera on spot metering and make sure my grey card is in the same light as my subject (and that my shadow is not over the card) and I will take a few readings of the card to see where my exposures should be at for a desired shutter speed. If you have a camera that allows shutter piority this will be easy just set the shutter speed you want, lets say 1/250 or 1/500, will stop just about anything. I will remember what the camera set as the aperature, and set the camera on manual, dial in that shutter speed and aperature and shoot away. This will get you very close to the correct exposure. Most higher end digital and film cameras have a type of metering called matrix or segmented metering, this can also work well but you can never tell what the camera is basing the exposure on so I only trust it in High contrast situations. After you get your grey card you can also experiment with other things as a grey card like grass, your hand, your jacket, gloves, camera bag to see how they compare to actual grey card reading then you wont have to pull out the card all the time. Just use your hand or something and adjust accordingly ( for me and most peeps when I spot meter off my hand I add 1 stop and shoot). You might find other things that are closer to the grey cary, and these things don't need to be grey(grey card is actually 18% reflectance) so it can be any color just experiment. What you can also do if you are taking pictures of a willing subject in a controlled situation (not a race!!!) is use flash. This will greatly improve the results of the photographs, you wil be able to see facial expressions, eyes and shadows much more clearly and in the day time flash is not so annoying because it's so bright outside. One last thing on shutter speed for those of you with cameras you can set shutter speed on. You can play around with slower shutter speeds and panning the camera to follow the subject, this will give a great effect of speed as the background will be blurred in a linear fashion and the subject will be reasonably clear, this takes some practice but with a digi-cam you can learn very quickly. If any one wants to add or wants questions answered about this please post here so all can see. We could also offer help on pictures that you just dont know what went wrong. Hope this all helps and didn't just confuse you more!! Michael Here is a link to a website that tells a little more about the grey card http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/The_Grey_Card.html This website goes into more detail on explaining all of this and has been a real help to me.

Hello I'm a lone carver wanting to ride with someone at welch village. If anyone else is going out there and would like someone to ride with let me know I will probably jump at the chance. Oh my wife will too she follows me around for some reason!!?? Mike

I'm a newcomer to this website and Forum, I've been carving for about 4 years and have competed in usasa events. I love that there is a website for this sport. It's very difficult to go at this thing alone like I have, hopefully soon I will be converting some skiiers.... (Shudder) but the more the merrier. I would like to comment on the photographs from the past SES events. I'm a serious amature photographer and I see that more than 85% or so of the pictures from past SES events are badly underexposed. The moments are caught nicely but underexposure is a problem. I know this is not the forum for photography but if anybody needs advice on how to take better pictures in the snow (which is not easy) please let me know and I will ramble on some more ;P. Great to finally be a part of something here and hope to make some friends. Michael