Inspired By Passion

I love all sorts of cycling photography. It’s such a simple, elegant machine. One guy that inspires me is Cycleangelo (great moniker!... what else would you call a cycling artist?) He has a great site and a couple really cool series of images he’s worked on over the years. I’ve always loved his “bike portrait” series. http://cycleangelo.cc/tagged/pron . (anyone know how he gets some of these bikes to seemingly stand on their own? Photoshop? Magic?)

This series inspired me to capture a similar portrait of my new ride (profile, drive side, captured in the location where it’s ridden.) I realize it’s far from a fixie (3x10) but hopefully Cycleangelo would approve ;-)

"I'll miss ya, Old Blue"

I was out riding the mountain bikes with friends and I tossed the LX-5 in the CamelBak figuring I might capture some cool shots at Rattling Creek Single Trackers amazing trail network up in Weiser State Forest in South Central PA. The ride did not turn out so well. I started off with a nasty "ting" sound and finally diagnosed a busted frame. Sadly, it was terminal. I'll miss that old bike.

I did manage to capture a few shots in one of the tougher boulder fields though. I hope that GnatLikes.com enjoys one of the bikes featured here ;-)

Bicycle commuting begins - Outdoor photography season close behind

Today was the day I'd been hoping for for a few weeks now. Bicycle Commuting Season officially opened today. The weather was nice. Actually it was downright warm this evening. The ride to work was a little interesting, I broke a spoke on a fast descent. The wheel wasn't TOO bad out of true to ride it. It did slow my pace to make sure it was stable though. A quick stop at the bike shop on the way home for a spoke and trued wheel fixed it all up though. (see missing spoke pictured above)

This also makes me feel smile that it's going to be outdoor photo session time. The trees still have the winter bare limbs and the grass isn't quite as green as my saturation slider makes it look... but we are getting there.

It was also a good day to do some scouting with the LX-5 today on the ride for an editorial shoot I want to do showcasing Harrisburg. I think I'm going to be focusing on Riverfront park for my project because it falls in line with my fitness interests of late. It's an attractive location (just not yet... still wintery looking.) 

I'm also testing my Eye-Fi card in my LX-5 and I'm waiting for the announced "direct mode" feature they announced at CES. This would have let me port these images from my LX-5 direct to my iPhone while on the trail without needing a WiFi hotspot and then I could have social shared them right away.

For the photo above, I had a little fun with the processing. I took the LX-5 RAW file into Lightroom and did some basic exposure adjustments and a "little" creative settings. Nothing major. Then I ported those JPGs back into my iPhone and used the app Diptic for the layout (cool little app for multi-panel images). That image was then imported into Instagram for some final finesse and sharing to my flickr feed, facebook wall and twitter. It's a fun little experiment to see what all you can do with iPhone apps when you are using a little better source material then my iPhone 3G camera.

Let me know what you think. Drop me a comment.

LX-5 With Off Camera Flash

I was playing around with the new portable camera and I'm really loving having something portable with me at all times. Playing is fun. I got the idea to stick my Radio Poppers on the hot shoe and see what it can do and I learned something really interesting that bears more testing. I started cranking down the shutter speed and I learned that the flash was syncing with the exposure. The power was dropping, but I need to try boosting the flash output. But, I'm finding... that because the LX-5 lacks a physical shutter (much like the micro 4/3rds cameras like the GF-1) that you don't get the half exposed image. Looking forward to playing more with this effect in more situations, but if anyone has experience with this or if I'm completely off base, drop me a comment.

In the meantime, here's a playing around pic.

iPhone pic of the day

Quick pre-ride photo before today's mtn bike ride.