Car Photo of the Day… a favorite.

I love this photo.

It was taken one evening in the smoky forest-fire-filled summer of 2006. Heading eastbound out of Lowell, Idaho, leaving the “civilization” of the Clearwater Canyon area above Lewiston, US 12 climbs the Lochsa River towards Lolo Pass at the crest of the Bitterroots. This is an area of our country rich in history, but largely forgotten today. This path was at one time one of the primary east-west routes through the Rocky Mountains, but now is rarely used – except by guys on motorcycles and in sports cars seeking roads less travelled. I’ve taken this road half a dozen times in my life and it never fails to please. It is long, and largely devoid of “services”… offering no stunning vistas or expansive viewpoints. All it does is twist and turn, writhe and wiggle. For miles and miles.

While the rains set in and winter begins to envelop us for the next few months I occasionally daydream about places like this. Roads less travelled. Twists and turns. Writhing and wiggling. Shifting and drifting.

It keeps me warm.


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Update: (more) Thoughts on a new Camera

I really appreciate all the feedback I have received over the past week or so since I first started thinking out loud on this subject. After digging a bit, I’ve narrowed my specifications. I could not find anything that covered all of my wants, and that forced me to concentrate on what I need. The first thing to go was AA batteries – it seems that virtually no DSLR works from AA’s. The next thing to go was video. Very few SLRs do video, and it appears none of them do it well.

I came back to the features that I need, which are small size and light weight. I took the suggestions of people I trust and fed them through that filter and came up with the cameras you see arrayed above. You can see the whole comparison table here. I think now, that unless something about the other two really strikes me, my final choice is between the two in the middle: The Olympus E-420 and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1. These two are the smallest, lightest DSLRs available, at 15.5 and 12.7 oz. respectively.

The more I look at the specs, the more I’m favoring the Panasonic, with it’s Leica lenses and apparently amazing tilt/swivel/swing viewfinder.

The Sony’s appeal is the price/performance, the viewfinder, and some impressive technical stats. It is HUGE compared to the Olympus & Panasonic. The Canon’s appeal to me lay primarily in its ability to be driven by a laptop for time-lapse. After thinking very hard about that I realized that the sort of time-lapse work I do, I’m better suited finding a compact consumer-grade digicam that is supported by my time-lapse software.

So my next step is to go and get my hands on these and see how they feel. Stay tuned!