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.

Another bike/camera post

Rather than repeat the post, I direct you here to a post from mid November on Bike Hugger. The post is about a nifty little rig the author saw in Japan, where a cyclist had mounted a small camcorder (looks a little like a Flip but isn't) to the front axle on his bike. 

With the right angle adjustment and a sufficient record-time on the camera this could be a really cool way to record a tour. It would require either a remote on/off (like I discussed when I posted about mounting a still camera to the racks on my Trucker) to allow easy recording of fun stuff (crazy descents, great views and the like) or an amazing amount of time and patience allowing the rider to flip through a day's worth of riding to find the segments worth keeping.

Either way, I've been thinking that a camcorder like the Flip might be a nice addition to documenting a tour. Hopefully I'll be in the shape to start some S24O tours early in the new year and wills tart playing with some of the ideas I have.

Cameras and bikes

A little while back I posted about using a mini tripod on my handlebars for taking pictures while riding. I used it to shoot a Sunday drive style ride, but the goal is to figure out the best way to carry a camera on a tour to get shots without having to stop and dig the camera out. Shortly after that post I came across this one from Bike Hacks, a great collection of commercial and home-brew camera mounting options.

Another option that I'm beginning to think about, especially if I can resolve the remote issue I mentioned before, is hooking the camera to the front end of my front rack. I purchased a set of Nice Racks, which have platforms on both the front and rear racks. The racks are about the same width as my camera and it shouldn't take much to rig something up to hold it. Obviously, that set-up requires 1) 2 cameras - one in front for the road and one in back for the other people on the tour; and 2) cameras with remotes. It's certainly something I want to look into.

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.