Norm, 194. which is "bike racer fat"!
No pics from Rumble in the Jungle :(
- Thread starter gtluke
- Start date
Norm, 194. which is "bike racer fat"!
gtluke
The Moped
Forgot to update this. But in a complete freak set of events, I wound up with a replacement camera.
Here goes:
Sunday: Jungle race day. Figure out camera and 70-200 lens are actually broken.
Monday: Tried to get out to Nikon in Long Island, didn't get out of my jobsite in time.
Tuesday: Go to UPS the camera, but being that the lens and body are worth over $5,000 the insurance on the package is $50, annoying. I'm going back to the Bronx on Thusday anyway.
Wednesday night: Get a call from an old buddy I used to race cars with like 10 years ago. He owns a Snap-On route in Ohio, he knows I'm into photography, we chat on message boards all the time but he doesn't know my camera is broken. He calls me, I haven't talked to him on the phone in 5+ years. He needed an answer fast on a question he knew I knew the answer to. One of his customers owes him $2,700 and offered a camera bag full of stuff in exchange for his debt. I asked for an inventory and the body was a D700, the exact camera I use. It's actually quite an unusual camera, most "pro's" go for the next model up, the D3. But for portability I went with the D700 as it quality and component wise identical. The D3 has a permanent vertical grip which is great, except it makes the camera 2-3" taller. Not good for taking it 5 miles into the trail head. It's also larger because it has dual memory cards for safety mirroring in case of a memory card failure. I don't do weddings and I'm not under contract to take MTB pictures so in the freak chance I have a memory card failure, oh well... D3 also does voice memo recording on images. I'm not a reporter, so again I don't need that. Useful if you are taking pictures of people and you need to remember their names or something. You can take their picture and speak their name into the picture and view it later.
So yeah he had this D700 and a few lenses, one being a good one. I tell him it's worth it, he can probably ebay this stuff for $3500, but he should send me some pictures of it so I can verify. He sends me pictures and I text him it's a solid deal and he should sell it to me since my camera just broke. He says sure, give him the $2,700 that he's owed and it's mine. I reply with only if he can overnight it to me! He does.
Thursday: Drop my camera off at Nikon. Get a quote for $550 to fix the lens, $350 to fix the body. UGH
Friday: Other camera shows up, confirm that it works fine.
Saturday: Shoot the Bagels race, meet up with a friend who lent me another 70-200 lens after the race.
Sunday: Shoot the blue race
All day Sat and Sunday, discover some setting that I had customized in my camera that I totally forgot in the new one. Waste time between racers trying to set that setting, miss racers in panic. I think I have 90% of it the same now. It's the really small things I keep forgetting about. Like I have a hot key on the camera that disables the flashes, shortcuts to some menus, the quality settings were set weird...
Glad to be back in action, hoping to get my camera back and unload this extra camera soon. No need at all for me to have this much gear. I have WAY too much money invested in camera gear as it is.
Lets be frank frank here, I do this for a hobby, for the passion. I don't make any money off of this. It ALL goes into upgrading or replacing or repairing gear. The one benefit I do get is I've been able to use my skills to get press credentials to rally races, which isn't easy, and which really makes rally spectating 100% better. I enjoy that a lot. I also enjoy coming out and cheering you guys on.
I gave out all my pictures from the Bagels race.
I will be lucky to make $10 from the Blue race while spending $20 on gas to get there and back. I wasn't feeling it today at Blue, I really should have just went on a bike ride instead. I hardly knew anyone there, it's a long drive, and I knew I wouldn't sell any pictures. But I want to make sure I have my camera stuff in order again.
BUT, while I was sitting there bored out of my mind, as I didn't even have internet access on my phone, or even cell signal to text anyone, two racers came up to me to introduce themselves and thank me for taking pictures. That really helped my day, thanks guys. Sitting alone in the woods for 6+ hours really takes a toll, this was my 11th I think race this year. I'm pretty much burnt out at this point. I'll do the 2nd Bagels race, I'll do Jim's cross race. I don't know if I have the motivation to do the last Wawayanda race. I want to get at least 2 days in at Diablo this year, I want to get a group ride at Blue Mountain, I want to go do a trials catastrophe with Jim, and I want to go outdoor climbing at least one more time this year. I'm running out of warm weekends.
Here goes:
Sunday: Jungle race day. Figure out camera and 70-200 lens are actually broken.
Monday: Tried to get out to Nikon in Long Island, didn't get out of my jobsite in time.
Tuesday: Go to UPS the camera, but being that the lens and body are worth over $5,000 the insurance on the package is $50, annoying. I'm going back to the Bronx on Thusday anyway.
Wednesday night: Get a call from an old buddy I used to race cars with like 10 years ago. He owns a Snap-On route in Ohio, he knows I'm into photography, we chat on message boards all the time but he doesn't know my camera is broken. He calls me, I haven't talked to him on the phone in 5+ years. He needed an answer fast on a question he knew I knew the answer to. One of his customers owes him $2,700 and offered a camera bag full of stuff in exchange for his debt. I asked for an inventory and the body was a D700, the exact camera I use. It's actually quite an unusual camera, most "pro's" go for the next model up, the D3. But for portability I went with the D700 as it quality and component wise identical. The D3 has a permanent vertical grip which is great, except it makes the camera 2-3" taller. Not good for taking it 5 miles into the trail head. It's also larger because it has dual memory cards for safety mirroring in case of a memory card failure. I don't do weddings and I'm not under contract to take MTB pictures so in the freak chance I have a memory card failure, oh well... D3 also does voice memo recording on images. I'm not a reporter, so again I don't need that. Useful if you are taking pictures of people and you need to remember their names or something. You can take their picture and speak their name into the picture and view it later.
So yeah he had this D700 and a few lenses, one being a good one. I tell him it's worth it, he can probably ebay this stuff for $3500, but he should send me some pictures of it so I can verify. He sends me pictures and I text him it's a solid deal and he should sell it to me since my camera just broke. He says sure, give him the $2,700 that he's owed and it's mine. I reply with only if he can overnight it to me! He does.
Thursday: Drop my camera off at Nikon. Get a quote for $550 to fix the lens, $350 to fix the body. UGH
Friday: Other camera shows up, confirm that it works fine.
Saturday: Shoot the Bagels race, meet up with a friend who lent me another 70-200 lens after the race.
Sunday: Shoot the blue race
All day Sat and Sunday, discover some setting that I had customized in my camera that I totally forgot in the new one. Waste time between racers trying to set that setting, miss racers in panic. I think I have 90% of it the same now. It's the really small things I keep forgetting about. Like I have a hot key on the camera that disables the flashes, shortcuts to some menus, the quality settings were set weird...
Glad to be back in action, hoping to get my camera back and unload this extra camera soon. No need at all for me to have this much gear. I have WAY too much money invested in camera gear as it is.
Lets be frank frank here, I do this for a hobby, for the passion. I don't make any money off of this. It ALL goes into upgrading or replacing or repairing gear. The one benefit I do get is I've been able to use my skills to get press credentials to rally races, which isn't easy, and which really makes rally spectating 100% better. I enjoy that a lot. I also enjoy coming out and cheering you guys on.
I gave out all my pictures from the Bagels race.
I will be lucky to make $10 from the Blue race while spending $20 on gas to get there and back. I wasn't feeling it today at Blue, I really should have just went on a bike ride instead. I hardly knew anyone there, it's a long drive, and I knew I wouldn't sell any pictures. But I want to make sure I have my camera stuff in order again.
BUT, while I was sitting there bored out of my mind, as I didn't even have internet access on my phone, or even cell signal to text anyone, two racers came up to me to introduce themselves and thank me for taking pictures. That really helped my day, thanks guys. Sitting alone in the woods for 6+ hours really takes a toll, this was my 11th I think race this year. I'm pretty much burnt out at this point. I'll do the 2nd Bagels race, I'll do Jim's cross race. I don't know if I have the motivation to do the last Wawayanda race. I want to get at least 2 days in at Diablo this year, I want to get a group ride at Blue Mountain, I want to go do a trials catastrophe with Jim, and I want to go outdoor climbing at least one more time this year. I'm running out of warm weekends.
gtluke
The Moped
Yeah I need someone to laugh with me as I fall off this thing 100 times. Every person on my block is a 90 year old Hasidic Jew. If they weren't so intolerant that they can't even acknowledge that I"m alive, they would probably tell me I'm retarded as I ride around using one of my crapbox cars as an obstacle 😉