Monday, February 26, 2007

The SH_T 2007 Kit! - HOT PINK
Rik just sent out the layout for the Secret Henry's Team 2007 Racing kit. SWEET!
I found a pair of Hot Pink lycra shoe covers on Ebay to add to the ensymble.
Great thing is some of the $$ from purchasing the kit will be donated to Breast Cancer research.

















Hopefully most people will only be seeing the kits from the rear :)

























Saturday, February 24, 2007

Burrrrrrrr........

Regular group met up at Charlie's work shop today with the plan to do a 3+ hour road ride. Chester County and Lancaster Counties PA.
Now, Ive done some pretty cold road rides in the past, but because today was so windy - I put this on down as my coldest road ride yet. Temp was in the teens to start, but it was WINDY - wind chill was....lets just say - hard!




Charlie as always, picked out a nice route and I was actually suprised there were no hills to start - He is pretty famous for putting together a route that hits most difficults hills in the area and puts the hurting into your legs and lungs.

My goal today was to just sit and spin tempo - no hard efforts, just some steady base riding. All and all I felt fine the entire ride - even at the end when we hit some hills, I was never beyond my limits and felf suprisingly good.

Back to the cold - ride left at 9am with the hope that the icy road sections would melt a bit - no such luck. In general the roads were in pretty decent shape, but we encountered numerous icy sections - funny how at the start of a ride - everyone is so cautious of the ice, and by the end everyone is just riding over it.


Fatmarc showing just how cold it was out there during a stop - Charlie's Speedplay cleats filled with ice after having to hike thru a 100 yard frozen road section.
Finished with a ride time of around 3 hours 15 minutes, 49 miles - longest road ride for me in quite a while.


Thursday, February 15, 2007

MLKimages and Joe Demb!

So yesterday I get a note from Joe Demb - A VERY Famous Boston wedding Photographer and creator of the "Flip-it!" Flash Diffuser.
http://www.joedembphotography.com/flipit/

Apparently Joe was reading a photography forum (Nikonians) where I had posted some recent wedding photographs I had taken using his Flip-it. Apparently he liked my photographs enough to want me to write a short note about using the diffuser and post a few of my images and a link to the gallery on his website. Although I was just shooting the wedding for a family member and as a guest, I was very pleased with the final results and really think the Flip-it is a great product. It does exactly what it is supposed to do and very easy to use (no learning curve). Highly recommended product.

http://www.joedembphotography.com/flipit/kirk/index.html

Michael

























Thursday, February 8, 2007

Equipment I use.

I am now adding a Blog to my site, the unfortunate thing is I am pretty bad (actually terrible) with computer coding. I am trying to change the appearance of my blog to match the stype of my Smug Mug site. In the meantime, I thought I would post what photography equipment I use. I have the same affliction as I do with bicycles - Champain taste on a beer budget, but I really like owning the best equipment!

Everything I own is Nikon! I have had a few off brand lenses in the past, but really I was not satisfied with the performance from these lenses - sold everything and now I own nothing but Nikon!

Camera body is the Nikon D200 - here are some of the highlights:



- 10.2 megapixel DX Format CCD image sensor
- Industry-leading image processing for exceptional color performance
- Large viewfinder with 0.94x magnification
- Durable, Magnesium alloy (Mg) body
- 5fps high-speed continuous shooting
- New, 11-area Multi-CAM 1000 AF System with 7 Area Wide AF
- Large 2.5-inch High Resolution LCD monitor with wide angle viewing to 170 degrees

Lenses I am currently using:
- 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor
- 85mm f/1.4D AF Nikkor
- 17-55mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor
- 70-200mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor
Flash Nikon SB800