Pics and digital cameras

[buck000]

Don't have any piccies (yet) to offer, but I did have a question about this one:



After thinking about how my novice self would negotiate that turn, and subsequently changing my Depends, I got to wonder where in the heck this place is.

Is it in TX, or elsewhere (it looks a lot like the highway 550 in Colorado, actually)???

Thx...this site looks so classy, Scott...

Paul

[Tourmeister]

it looks a lot like the highway 550 in Colorado, actually

Excellent guess! It is near many of the silver mines on US 550. I think it may be North of Silverton, but I'm not positive. It might be between Silverton and Durango. Nonetheless, it is a fun curve to negotiate. You pick your line, stay constant on the throttle and look through the curve. You really have to watch the cages though, they like to drift across the double yellow!

[buck000]

Thx, I thought it looked familiar, we hit this in the car last summer, I'm dying (oops, wrong word choice) to try this on a bike Some Day. :P

[scratch]

Scott, I'm looking into getting a digital camera and hope to make some contributions within the next couple of months. Also, I'm still trying to get a TWT logo design together for you; I haven't forgotten about that.
__________________________

On the topic of good curves, I rode through La Grange last Saturday and took Highway 77 through town and across the Colorado River. The series of curves going up the escarpment there have got to be one of the best sets of turns in Texas, and the pavement is perfect. The only problem is that it's all over in less than a minute.

So I had to turn around and go back through them a couple of extra times.

Anyway, if you're ever riding in that area, you really shouldn't miss it. Monument Hill at the top of the escarpment is a really great little state park to stop at too.

[Tourmeister]

Scott, I'm looking into getting a digital camera and hope to make some contributions within the next couple of months. Also, I'm still trying to get a TWT logo design together for you; I haven't forgotten about that.

Well, my camera recently starting acting up. Fortunately, I purchased a two year extended warranty on it when I bought it from Sears. The sole reason I bought it at Sears is that their warranty is a REPLACEMENT warranty. They don't even try to fix the camera. You either get a new one just like yours, or if they cannot get it, you get the next model up. As they did not have either a replacement or the next model up, they simply refunded the entire cost of the camera and half the cost of the warranty!! Needless to say, I came out ahead on that deal. I just ordered a new camera, the Sony CD500. It is the top of the line Sony that uses CDR/CDRW discs. All the bells and whistles of my original camera and then some. Can't wait for it to get here!!

I'm quite interested to see what you come up with for a logo. Certainly appreciate the effort.

[scratch]

Originally Posted by Tourmeister

...I just ordered a new camera, the Sony CD500. It is the top of the line Sony that uses CDR/CDRW discs. All the bells and whistles of my original camera and then some. Can't wait for it to get here!!

Wow! That's a nice camera! I'm looking for something in the 3 mp range for around $300.00. Right now, the Canon Powershot A70 is at the top of my list. Got any suggestions?

[Tourmeister]

Howdy,

Well I am not a camera guru by any stretch of the imagination. The main reason I went with the Sonys is that they use the CDR/CDRW mini discs. If I buy the Memorex discs, the CDRW's are $8.00 for a 10-pack. Each disk is 185 Mb. I can buy CDR's for about 25 cents each and they also hold 185 Mb. The camera is a second or two slower than one with a memory stick. However, this one has a LARGE buffer and can hold several pics before burning them to disc. When the camera is first turned on it may take 5-20 seconds before you can take the first pic because it has to read the disc and figure out where everything is. That has never been a problem for me.

I like the discs because when I am on a trip, I can easily carry a 10-pack and have no fear of running out of storage media. Even if I did, getting more would be cheap!! The discs are darn near indestructible compared to memory sticks/cards. No worries about magnetic tankbags or anything else. If I am at a friends house, I can pop the disc out of the camera and put it into their CD-Rom drive and copy off any images they want, then pop it right back in the camera. I don't need any cables. usb drivers, etc,... Very convenient.

The drawback to this camera is that the CD burner stuff is a little fragile so you can't go tossing the camera all over the place. But I have a purpose setup tankbag with LOTS of foam padding for carrying the camera and all the accessories.

The CD200 that I had took really great pics. The CD500 has better resolution and better optics. Hopefully it will do a much better job of the upclose flower and bug pics that I like to take

I get the impression that anything in the 3Mpixel and $300 range will have to be some sort of memory stick/card arrangement. I'm not familiar with any of them. Sorry. But if you can just splurge a little, you can find the CD500 online for just under $600. I got mine here:

http://www.butterflyphoto.com/viewit...efTag=dealtime

Good luck!

[scratch]

I appreciate the info, Scott!

Yes, the Canon (and every other camera I've considered so far) requires some type of memory card. Having a built-in CD burner is pretty darn cool, but I really should stick to my budget.

- sigh -

[Hood Ornament]

Originally Posted by scratch

Wow! That's a nice camera! I'm looking for something in the 3 mp range for around $300.00. Right now, the Canon Powershot A70 is at the top of my list. Got any suggestions?

Actually, the A70 is the same camera I'm looking at. Nice size for carrying around in a tank bag, 3 megapixel is fine for anything smaller then 8X10 printouts which I almost never do. Memory cards are no biggie. You can get a 20 gig HD MP3 player with a USB card reader for $250 and use the storage space to store pics. Kill 2 birds with one stone sort of thing.

[Tourmeister]

You can get a 20 gig HD MP3 player with a USB card reader for $250 and use the storage space to store pics. Kill 2 birds with one stone sort of thing.

Now that is a pretty good idea if you also want to have music on your ride! I prefer the beautiful sound of my gear driven cams :P

Would you use a USB cable to send files from the camera to the MP3 player? Or is there a spot on the player where the memory sticks might plug in?

[Tourmeister]

Howdy,

Well I placed the order Friday afternoon around 2:00pm. The camera arrived Monday at 3:00pm!! They had to ship to my home address because that is the billing address on the credit card. Very annoying as no one is home during the day to sign for it. However, I left a note for the FedEx guy to reroute it to Beth's bank and he actually did it. She signed for it and I came and got it. Woohoo!

The manual is THICK! Fortunately, many of the features and steps are common to the camera I just got rid of, so learning it is not bad. The new camera has some great exposure and focusing features. I'm gonna go for a ride this evening and do some experimenting to see how it does. One of the coolest features is the ability to shoot VGA quality video at 16 fps until the disc is full!! It also has an email video mode that records at a lower resolution so you can mail the videos.

The best part is that because of the warranty I got through Sears with the original camera, I got a full refund on the original purchase price and half the warranty cost back!! After getting the new camera, I came out several hundred dollars ahead of the game and with a much better camera!! It finally paid off to buy the extended warranty

Time to go play...