Seirra Blanca - Ruidoso, NM
Made another run on the bike and made another post to the blog using the low-key technique--i.e. iPad only. On the way out to Ruidoso stopped at the turn off on the side of the road with a roadsign describing Seirra Blanca, the most southern alpine environmental area in the Northern Hemisphere. It's a beautiful mountain and when it's covered in snow in the winter or by a thunderstorm in the summer, it's particularly beautiful. Lately, we haven't seen much of that.
You see, just recently the drought ended. From October to end of June we had little to no precipitation in the area. Sierra Blanca was noticeably bald during the winter without its usual coat of snow. The whole region from central Arizona to Texas was suffering through the same weather conditions. Only in the last month has the drought been broken by the late but welcome annual monsoon.
Now, it rains. Almost everyday in the mountains. W even get a few storms down in the basis as they come of the mountains. It's very much needed, thank you very much.
This low impact low content low equipment technique for posting blogs seems to be working well enough. I haven't quite figured out the best place to put my camera that's protected well enough from the very adverse motorcycle environment and still available to be used relatively quickly. Right now the camera is in its own padded bag in the waterproof satchel that also holds my iPad. And, that's located in the bike's left pannier. It's not very easy to get out and shoot. I need to find another place to put it.
Getting the image into my iPad then onto the web is a cinch as noted yesterday. It's crazy when I think about it. I might actually be able to blog a little when on the road on my next major trip by using this combo.
View From The Cockpit - Ruidoso, NM
This next image is the view from my bike's cockpit. The new thing in this map case which is on my new tank bag which is sitting just in front of my seat.
Right now there's nothing in there except what I had in the little map pouch I previously used. I'm a little worried about how water-proof this bag might be. Reading online some have said they've been very happy with it's water proofness. Others, not so much. A couple runs through the rain has so far been very promising, just a couple of drops inside the bag.
I'm hopeful because I'd like to put my little portable camera in this tank bag for easy access. We'll see
Hotel Room Motorcycle Stuff - Bloomfield, NM
You see, if this works it's that much less stuff I have to bring when riding. As it is with everything, there's a compromise. If I can make the workflow acceptable I might be able to minimize my use of a full-sized camera body and associated lenses.
My last trip that camera gear, a body and three lenses, occupied almost the whole tail box on my bike. That's a lot of stuff I'd like to do without. Of course, you give up something when you change that equipment. The quality of the images because the quality of the sensor and optics are that much less. But, for this type of photography, the type I'm planning on doing from my bike, that's less of a big deal.
When I did my epic trip east last year, I brought my gear, my camera gear and ended up using it once. I transported 20 lbs of very expensive high tech gear and used it only once. What did I do? I used my phone a lot. That's not saying I didn't shoot images. I shot a lot. I just shot with the camera I had in my hands which was my iPhone.
This trip I have a new much better portable camera, a Canon G12. It's not the smallest point and shoot out there but it just might have the best sensor and feature set of any of the small cameras.
There is much to figure out before I commit to going down this route. Lots to think about. For now, as you can see with these posts, it's looking promising.
Cheers
Tom