I guess I kind of knew it at the time, but I didn’t carry my camera at all while we explored the town of Estes Park. Mostly we were there in the evening, and when going to dinner I didn’t want to lug around a camera. But I had my phone!
Here are a few representative shots of downtown Estes Park. Nothing terribly artsy but it does give a good flavor. And yes, there were a number of salt water taffy shops…these are just a few of them!
This post began as a comment to Cedric’s post on his own blog, but as I thought about the subject it turned into a full-fledged blog post of my own. I summarized my thoughts in a comment on his blog but thought I might as well pour out the whole bucket of goo in my own blog post.
In his post, Cedric ponders the need for constant upgrades, lamenting as many of us do that it’s not enough simply to buy a camera and have it serve our needs for years to come. It can be done, but it can be very difficult. There are many factors at play, but for the most part cameras are just one thing in our daily lives that seems to be caught in a perpetual cycle of upgrades.
A lesser but very important point that Cedric made in this and the subsequent post is related to how the pace of technological change has diminished our appreciation for the technology itself. I think that may be true to some extent, but I also think that for people who didn’t experience things in the “good old days” they can’t imagine how things could be different. I and others within a few years of my own age have seen the internet, computers and technology in general explode, much more so in the last 10 years than in the 100 before it. Without the context of time beyond about 20 or so years ago, today is the norm to younger people. Compared with how things were when our parents grew up the change is unimaginable.
Our pace of technological advance has quickened so much in recent years that things do greatly improve in ways that were unthinkable 20, 30, 40 or 50 years ago. It used to be possible to buy a good camera body and a couple of lenses and spend ones entire career shooting with the same gear. Cameras were built to last and for the most part they did. The only thing that changed was the film, and that upgrade happened incrementally.
When we use the same camera and lenses for a long time we do tend to develop a bond with them. Much of that bond stems from familiarity, and a familiar tool in many ways becomes an extension of the user, and the more we use it the less we have to think about it. Cedric suggests the idea of a camera having a “soul.” That might be a little strong, but the point deserves consideration, because I believe we can be inspired by our experience with a camera as a tool. Maybe a better way to put it would be that a camera can have an influence on our own soul. That might be a subject for further explanation!
There is a certain “upgrade mentality” related to all sorts of objects and devices. Much of this mentality is marketing driven, but much of it is driven by real advances in technology. What we have to decide is whether and to what extent we choose to participate. Some things matter, many do not. I personally do not need to drive the newest and most expensive car, but to many people that seems to be a priority. A good camera is important to me, and that means a more sizeable investment than many people would consider reasonable. I have polarizers that cost more than many people would spend on a camera, but I know people who spend more on golf clubs than I would spend on a new lens. I would rather drive a 12 year-old car but have a newer camera. I spend money on vacations but other people own a boat or a motorcycle. It’s all a matter of priorities.
I just shipped off a load of used camera gear, and included in that load was my original Canon 5D. It’s the camera I traded in my medium format gear to buy. Talk about a bond! While the 20D was an excellent camera, the 5D replaced it and I have been using it for over 10 years. That camera has paid for itself many times over. I used it as my second camera on our recent trip to Colorado. It was my backup camera two years ago in Nova Scotia, and I thought so much of it that I had it fixed after the mirror fell off! Did I need to replace it? Not really, other than the fact that the sensor is a dust magnet (always was) it functions as well now as it did when it was new.
I didn’t buy the 5D Mark II when it came out, even though many folks regarded it as a worthwhile upgrade. The main thing it did was shoot video, and I never shoot video. In a few months I’ll probably sell off the 5D Mark III and the rest of my Canon lenses. All of the lenses are 10+ years old too, and it has gotten to the place where the next camera upgrade will probably force a change anyway. So as long as I’m changing I’ve decided that it’s the right time to change completely. I’ll be making the change primarily because I feel my needs have changed, not so much because I think I need something better. If I was willing to keep carrying around that heavy gear I wouldn’t hesitate to keep it, because it still does an excellent job of meeting my photographic needs, and probably would for a while to come.
The pace of technology these days pretty much demands upgrades in many areas, but we all need to decide what is important to us. There is a certain level of performance required to do basic things, and as our needs expand so does the requirement for our technology support. If we buy a new camera that makes larger files, we find that we need more memory. If we’re using a 7 year-old computer we might find that it won’t run the latest software that we need to handle those files. There’s an upgrade cycle, and like it or not that’s part of the cost to participate. Our choice is to play or not play, but once you’re in, I think you need to keep up. I’m not always thrilled about that, but that’s the way it is. It’s been easier for me to avoid the marketing-driven temptations since I gave up television and “nagazines,” but I still like the tech part of things. The key is to make a change when it matters, not just when a camera company decides it’s time.
My son Kevin at 29 is very tech-savvy but also shares a philosophy of life that is similar to mine when it comes to spending money on technology. We have had a number of discussions about this very subject, most recently with a discussion about phones. But the discussion holds true for many things, including cameras. Kathy and I had phones that were 4 years old. Kathy’s phone was working just fine, because all she uses hers for is texting, email and the occasional phone call. Mine was chewing through batteries like candy, because while I’m not a “power user” I do tend to download and use many of the latest apps. The older phone wasn’t designed to do all that and was starting to tell me so. My son’s guidance was that for certain things we need to accept the fact that if we were going to use our phones like I use mine, they were not going to last more than a couple of years. The improvement in performance and battery life is noticeable – to me but not so much for Kathy – at least not yet – so the upgrade was worthwhile.
Kevin doesn’t care much about cameras, but he is a heavy phone and computer user. It is much more important for him to have current devices. As far as computers go I am strictly a user, but my needs for handling camera files dictate that I have a computer that is up to the task.
Up to this point all I have done is unload some surplus gear. I still have a very useable and excellent camera to use when I need one. I’ve already accomplished one major goal, which was to have less stuff to carry around! With no big vacations in the immediate future, the camera I have will continue to meet my needs perfectly. Once I have some cash in hand I’ll be able to start looking at ways to spend it. There’s a slim chance that I’ll decide to spend the money on new lenses for the camera I have, and it’s even less likely that I’ll just hang on to the cash. But it’s far more likely that I’m going to use it as seed money toward a new system. Something smaller and lighter is my ultimate goal, and I feel is sufficient reason for an upgrade.
Trail Ridge Road is the road through Rocky Mountains National Park. I had been looking forward to this drive since we started planning our vacation, perhaps even more than the idea of driving to the top of Pike’s Peak. Cresting at over 12,000 feet, you truly feel like you are at the top of the world.
We spend parts of several days on Trail Ridge Road. I took a lot of photos during our drive, but for the most part the time was spent behind the wheel. I’ve posted a few shots that give a bit of the flavor for what it was like, but like a lot of places in the great outdoors, photos hardly do the scenery justice.
Parts of the road have no berm and no guardrail, and the consequences for distraction can be pretty dramatic. Kathy took quite a few photos through the windshield and I took a few with my phone, but they are mostly record shots and not really worthy of publication. I may try to post a gallery of phone photos from our trip at a later time.
In general I don’t have the inclination or patience to make “proper” photographs of animals. But knowing that we would be in an area known for wildlife, I wanted to be prepared. Most of these are snapped from alongside the road, in less-than-perfect lighting, but I got what I got. Not much to say, other than “enjoy!”
The town of Grand Lake sits on the western end of Rocky Mountains National Park, and is the gateway to the park for those entering on the west side of the continental divide.
The lake known as Grand Lake is the largest natural lake in Colorado and lies at an elevation of 8367 feet. Grand Lake is known as the headwaters of the Colorado River.
We spent three nights in Grand Lake, and used it as a base for our forays into Rocky Mountains National Park. It has more of an “outdoorsy” feel than some of the other towns we visited, and we enjoyed it very much.
We were a little concerned when we found out that our motel didn’t have air conditioning. There are few places where we would want to not have it. But the first night we were there the temperature dipped into the 30s, so all we needed to do was keep the windows open!
Our plan for the first full day in Colorado was to drive to the top of Pike’s Peak. Unfortunately Mother Nature had other plans, and the mountain received about 8 inches of snow the night before our visit. It was interesting because it poured rain in Manitou Springs the previous afternoon, and when the skies cleared it was clear everywhere except the top of Pikes Peak, which was still shrouded in clouds.
When we got to the entrance that morning the ranger warned us that the road was not open to the top and offered us the chance to change our minds But we were there and wanted to see what we could see, so decided to take our chances.
The entrance part of the road is at an elevation of 7,800 feet – 1,000 feet above Mount Mitchell, the highest point in North Carolina! The lower part of the road is just like driving any mountain road – winding and steep in spots with a few nice viewpoints. Beautiful views, for sure!
We spent some time at Crystal Reservoir Visitor Center at Mile 6, which is at 9,160 feet. That was our first view of where Pikes Peak was, although we couldn’t see it, as it was still buried in clouds. The ranger there said that the road had been opened a little farther up, but that they still didn’t know if they would be able to open it to the top. We decided to press on and take our chances.
The higher elevations are where things get interesting. There are very few places to pull off, and on the day we visited most of the pulloffs were socked in with clouds. We made it to the overlook at Mile 18 – known as Sheep Sign because there is a sign there about Bighorn Sheep – where they had the road blocked. The ranger there said it was still snowing above and not safe to drive, so that was as far as we could go. It was snowing on us as we talked to him!
We had a little bit of vertigo and dizziness at the higher elevations. This is normal, and wasn’t helped by the fact that we couldn’t see anything to orient ourselves! This feeling subsided as we returned back below 10,000 feet, and we never had another problem with elevation the entire rest of the vacation. For that we were very thankful.
I did manage to get a few photos to document our visit. We’ll have to plan and visit again sometime when there is less of a chance of snow. We thought June was late enough, but maybe it will need to be July or August next time!
As I go through my images from our recent vacation to Colorado, I’m going to try and do short posts – mostly in order I hope – with a few photos from each of the places we visited. I’ll also try to add a little commentary along the way. Eventually these will all end up in a gallery on my website.
Our first night in Colorado was in Manitou Springs, just west of Colorado Springs. So from the Denver airport we headed south with the idea of seeing what we saw along the way. Garden of the Gods was on our list of places to visit, weather and time permitting.
As it turned out we had time, but we almost didn’t have the weather. It was threatening rain from the time we pulled into the parking lot, sprinkled a few times on the trails then really let go about the time we were leaving. Good timing! It would have been pretty toasty there if we didn’t have the clouds, and good photos might have been a little tougher to come by.
Happy Birthday, Monte!
I got some skeptical looks when I told people that while I was in Colorado I was looking forward to seeing a friend that I had met on the internet. It wasn’t quite that way but it usually got the reaction I was looking for! I’m like that sometimes. 😉
Most of the readers of this blog already know Monte, and a few had already met him. But since I had already met Paul, Earl aka Brooks, and Paul Maxim, I couldn’t take a trip to Colorado without checking in with Monte.
When we planned the itinerary for this vacation I wanted to spend some time in Fort Collins, mostly to see Monte but also to visit the town itself. As it turns out, it is quite the booming place, with a vibrant downtown area known as Old Town, lots of breweries and some excellent restaurants.
Monte came to meet us at our hotel the first night we were in town, we spent an hour or so chatting, and as I expected hit it off immediately. You kind of get a feeling for a person after sharing stories and photographs for as long as we have, but you never know. It was great! Kathy got into the act, too. We had a nice dinner and kept each other up well past our usual bedtimes.
The second evening Monte acted as tour guide and took us to some of his favorite photographic locations. Many places I had seen from his photos, and a few that I had not. And mostly places I never would have gotten to – or back from – on my own!
We met up again on our last evening, had another nice dinner and spent a lot more time chatting. Fortunately we were already packed for the return trip to Charlotte and didn’t figure we would get much sleep anyway!
Thank you Monte for an enjoyable time! You are a great host and guide, and we look forward to meeting up with you again sometime or somewhere soon!
It’s hard to believe that it was two months ago, but in early April, Kathy & I took our latest excursion to eastern North Carolina along with our friends Bill & Cathy from Ohio. We visited our usual haunts of Belhaven and Washington, but also visited Edenton and Bailey. Here are a few photos from that trip, just for fun.
Kathy & I recently decided to take a long weekend to Waynesville, North Carolina, and I decided that it would be an excellent opportunity to try out the second of the two cameras that I have been wanting to try. While I wasn’t (and still am not) looking to replace my Canon gear, I have been wanting to try a few of the “state of the art” mirrorless cameras. I decided a while ago that of all the cameras to choose from, I was most likely to choose between the Fuji XT1 and the Olympus OMD EM1.
Back in January I rented a Fuji XT1 from Lensrentals and tried it out over a weekend in Charlotte. I wrote about the experience in a couple of posts, here and here. So for the weekend in Waynesville I decided to rent the other camera, an Olympus OMD EM1. Yes, I know the punctuation isn’t quite correct, but it’s too hard to get that alphabet soup arranged correctly!
Whenever the time comes to replace my current camera system, I know that my two priorities are going to be image quality and handling. The 5D Mark III checks all the boxes for image quality, and after 12+ years of using Canon DSLRs the handling and layout of the menus is second nature to me. My only real reason for giving that up would be to find comparable image quality and good handling in a camera that is smaller and lighter. I can get used to just about any menu system given enough time, so I’m not too concerned about that.
My impression from the Fuji was that I really liked the files. I felt like the image quality was very good, and that it would likely be a suitable replacement for the full sized DSLR. My only real objection was that the camera felt too small for my hands, and I never felt like I had a secure and comfortable grip on it. That could probably be solved with one of the accessory grips sold by Fuji and others, but I didn’t get a chance to include that in my rental. Since January, Fuji has also come out with a larger “pro” level lens that might give me something more substantial to hang on to.
Being a firm believer in Murphy’s Law, I had had a feeling that when I tried the Olympus I would really like how the camera handled but that I wouldn’t like the files as much. But I’ve been a fan of the more square aspect ratio of the 4/3 cameras since my 6×7 medium format days, so I knew that would be a plus. From the moment I opened the box, assembled the camera and lens and held it in my hands, I had the feeling that “this is it.” In fact, the entire weekend I was daydreaming about how I could get the Canon gear boxed up and sent off to trade it all in on the Olympus and a supply of lenses. I really liked the way it handled, and other than the 30 minutes I spent trying to figure out how to get the lens out of Manual Focus mode (little did I realize that the Olympus 12-40 has a “push-pull” clutch mechanism to change between auto and manual focus) and the well-documented frustration with the menu hierarchy, it was a breeze to use.
As luck would have it, I came home from a nice relaxing long weekend into a hectic week so my time to evaluate the files immediately was quite limited. I boxed up the camera and sent it back to Lensrentals, and downloaded the files to my computer. I snuck a quick peek at a few of the photos before heading off to bed, and was astonished to find that my initial impression was “yuck!” I even told Kathy – who had been patiently listening to me sing the praises of the Olympus all weekend – that my initial reaction was “leave your credit card in your wallet.” She was as surprised to hear it as I was to say it.
I’ve now had a chance to spend some quality time with the files in Lightroom, and my impression has improved significantly. I’m going to try to tread very carefully here, because (a) I’m only trying to describe my experience and am not trying to write a comprehensive review, (b) I know a lot of people whose photography and opinions I respect who use the Olympus, and I’m not trying to question anyone else’s opinion, and (c ) I am by no means a qualified camera tester.
In general I don’t find the image quality to be bad or anything, but my impression is that the files do not have the contrast, sharpness and color rendition that I get from my Canon cameras and that I saw in the Fuji files. They seem to be a little noisier than the Fuji files and I don’t feel that they have the dynamic range of the Canon or Fuji files. I suspect that this is due to the smaller sensor as much as anything. They seemed to require a little more sharpening and noise reduction than the Canon and Fuji files, and don’t seem to respond as well to large adjustments.
Admittedly I have not spent nearly as much time with either the Fuji or the Olympus files as I have with my Canon files, and I have processed a lot of Canon files over the years. I may have “gotten lucky” with the Fuji files, and given more time I might find the key to the Olympus files. But based on my limited experience with both of them if I had to make a choice I would probably have to choose the Fuji over the Olympus at this point in time. I would just need to find a solution to the lack of a grip, which I think would be pretty easy to accomplish.
I’ll undoubtedly have more to say on the subject over the next week or two, and I will certainly post some additional photos and commentary as I get to them. I might actually bring myself to make a purchase at some point in the near future. But we have a big trip coming up in June and there is no compelling reason to rock the boat. Kathy & I will be taking our first-ever trip to Colorado in June, and I’m planning to go with the tried and true Canon kit. I know it well, am confident that it will give me the results I want, and other than schlepping it through the airports we will be doing most of our travel by car, so the size and weight will not be as big of a factor.
If you were hoping for a little bias confirmation bias, sorry for the disappointment. 😉