My commute

I've been meaning for some time to take my camera with me on my commute home from work (the to-work commute is mostly me in the BART train, not very exciting) and get some pics up. I finally got around to it. I've posted more, along with the little map thingee, at flikr. Keep in mind that I don't have a camera with a GPS, so some of the map placements are rough.

Approaching the Oakland AMTRAK station at Jack London Square

Two-way bike lane on one side of the street to provide access to the ped/bike bridge from Alameda to Bay Farm Island

On the ped/bike bridge

Crew team (one of three I saw) working out in the channel near the Oakland Coliseum

The entrance to the Oakland International Airport

I have a heap more (72 pics total) at the flikr link above. They run from the bike room at work to my workshop at home. Hope you enjoy them, I know I enjoyed the ride where I took them.

New camera set-up

I am not a photographer, I'm a shutterbug. By that I mean that I carry a wee little digital camera (Canon PS A540, if anyone cares) around just about everywhere I go, and I pop off pictures of pretty much anything that catches my eye. I shoot for myself, and so I can share some of the things I have done with friends and family. If you are looking for beautiful photography with a cyclist flare check out Russ Roca's stuff.

This is mine, not Russ' - go to his site and prepare to be amazed

All that being said, I do like to take pictures while I ride, and I've been trying to figure out a convenient way to do it. I used to just slip the camera into my OYB bag on the bars and pull it out when I wanted to shoot. The good is that the camera was in my hand and I could really see what I was shooting, the bad was that I had to wait for it to turn on, fire up, and be ready to go each time.

On my ride on Sunday I decided to try strapping my mini-tripod to the stem and see how that worked. The good was that I left the camera on for the whole ride, the bad was that I had to adjust the angle before I set out and hope I was catching what I wanted - no zoom, no framing.

All in all I'm happy with the results. The next step will be figuring out a way to hook the camera up to a wired remote so I can shoot from the drops/hoods rather than having to let go and hit the button. Another step, especially if I pull together a tour, will be to get a new camera with a re-positionable screen so I can have a better idea what the shot is going to look like.