Continuing our two steps forward one step back approach to getting going on our journey, we now have the new truck and on Monday the hitch and brake controller will go into it.  At last we’ll be ready to pull!

Our new Duramax truck

It was almost impossible to find a decent used truck in good condition and capable of pulling our trailer.  In the end it wa our new best friend Jim Perry over at Jim Perry Motors that found this one for us by searching auctions all over eastern Canada and USA.

In the step back department, I realized last night I’ve lost my passport somehow.  ARGH!

Our solar electric gear is enroute.  Not looking forward to installing it in this kind of weather, but we’ll do it.

Environment Canada weather forecast

Our trailer is most definitely not made for this kind of weather.

Well, it has been one problem and delay after another since my last posting.  The house is good and sold and we finally have access to the money and=fter a couple delays.  But instead of exploring photographic opportunities somewhere warm we are still in Ontario trying to get mobile

Our new home on wheels

Look at any one ton truck flyer and you’ll see that such trucks can be configured to pull our new 14000 lb home.  Ask any dealer and they’ll point out several trucks for the job.  Problem is, the trucks they are pointing at are almost never actually configured for such a load.  “My cousin pulls a 40,000 lb hay wagon with his…” they’ll tell you.  Perhaps his cousin has the proper rear end, or perhaps he doesn’t mind replacing his worn out rear end on a regular basis, or perhaps he only loads the vehicle up a few times a year, but the experienced RVers at RV.net are pretty clear about one thing … overload your truck and you are in for some serious repair bills, and are a hazard to yourself and others as well.

Now if we had the budget for a new truck this would not be a problem.  But we are looking for a used truck and it turns out that heavy tow vehicles in the use truck market are as scarce as bikinis in an Ottawa winter.  Who knew?

So we continue to impose on some dear friends while the winter grows nearer, hoping each day to find “Our” truck.

You wouldn’t happen to have a 1 ton dually diesel truck with a 14000lb+ tow capacity for sale, would you?

Spot quiz:

When was the last time Nikon announced a new DSLR with a higher resolution sensor than it’s previous camera offerings at a price more affordable than $8000?

Answer:

September 16th, 2004, more than 5 years ago.

This simple fact was at the heart of the backlash against the D3X announcement last year, and I suspect it is the root cause of the negative response the D3s announcement a few days ago is getting in online forums.  While users of Sony, Canon, and other manufacturers camera systems can buy DSLRs with up to 24 megapixel sensors for a few thousand dollars, the Nikon faithful are still stuck at the 12 megapixel level introduced with the D2X unless they can afford and justify the $8000 list price (a little lower in practice) of a D3X.

Taken out of context, this new camera looks like a terrific refresh of an already amazing camera.  Nikon’s “s” cameras are always modestly improved versions of previously available models, so for example, the addition of sensor shake for dust removal is not unexpected.

But the D3s in fact seems to be a rather more ambitious refresh than usual.  We’ll have to wait for the tests to be sure, but it seems to give another stop or two of high ISO/low noise performance beyond the already industry leading D3.  I don’t think anybody expected that, and it certainly solidifies Nikon’s lead in this area.

But if nobody expected this, it is also true that nobody asked for it.  One can find thousands of posts from customers wanting more pixels at a more affordable price point.  You can find many messages from people wishing that the autofocus sensors covered more of the frame, as they do in DX format cameras.  I don’t recall seeing anybody wish for better low light sensitivity.  I’m not saying it won’t be useful.  I’m saying it isn’t where we are feeling pain.

It has been an exciting couple years to be a Nikon user.   After being just a bit behind Canon in previous years, we watched Nikon come roaring back with industry leading bodies and lenses challenging Canon at all levels.  Now it seems Nikon is playing defensively, tightening their grip on one particular market segment while customers in other segments wait, and wait.

I’ll probably buy a D3X soon.  I’ll be able to only because I’m selling my house.  If not for that I’d be as unhappy with the recent announcement as many other people are.

It has been a longer and more difficult path getting here than we had expected, but at last we are here.

House sale agreement

Our house is sold, subject to satisfactory inspections etc., and if all goes well we will be out within a month and hopefully moving into a new fifth wheel very shortly after.  Our current plan is to spend about a year traveling through Canada and the US making photographs and paintings and thinking about how we want to live the next part of our lives.

Woohoo!  At last!

Well, the terrible flu I mentioned returned, and a trip to the hospital landed me in the intensive care unit for a while.  It wasn’t the flu after all, but acute pancreatitis caused, it is thought, by previously undiagnosed diabetes.  It seems I’ll be living the remainder of my life at the end of a needle.

The whole hospital experience was thought provoking.  The queue times in the emergency room were very long.  Even being sick enough for ICU, it took 4 hours before I first saw a doctor and 9 hours before I was admitted to hospital.  For most of that time there was nowhere for me to lie down, and sitting up was quite difficult.  People with less severe conditions were waiting 12 or 13 hours to be seen.

Nicole actually suggested during my first attack (when I thought it was some kind of flu) that I should visit the emergency room.  It was the thought of spending the better part of a day waiting to be seen that caused me to resist.

Clearly there is room for improvement in our emergency room capacities, but that’s only one part of the picture.  The larger picture is that I was very sick and in urgent need of medical care.  I got the care I needed, and this being Canada, I came home with no added stress about how to pay the medical bills … aside from the medication and insulin I now need, there are none.

The system is not perfect, but I am ever so grateful that it is there.  The bottom line that when I fell, it was there to catch me.

I’ve been “Too fevered to talk” sick for much of the last week and a half, but am now in that “well enough to be irritated I’m not completely well” phase of recovery.

The illness interrupted my exploration of an old feed handling facility not very far from where we live.  The buildings are intact and cannot be (legally) entered, but there is wealth of rusty equipment to be explored outside.  What makes this particular rust so interesting is the story it tells via multiple layers of paint interacting with nature, both organic and inorganic.

Rust, paint, and organics

I’m looking forward to spending many hours exploring the photographic potential of this place.

We’ve been selling off our beekeeping equipment in preparation for becoming nomadic. The other day Nicole pointed out some beekeeping gloves hanging over the top of the shower after having been washed. I think it was the way they were shaped like hands that caught her attention. Myself I was more caught by the light, the rich colours of the leather, and the fine detail.

Hanging beekeeping gloves

I worked with them for half a day or so. This one got closest to satisfying me.

Beekeeping gloves

I worked it a little, burning in the upper right hand corner and reducing the tonal range of a small area of the bottom where the shower door was presenting some distracting sparkles, but ultimately I think the composition is just not what I was looking for.

Beekeeping gloves, processed a little bit

That old itch to be making photographs has been growing again.  Here’s one I’ve been eyeing for a couple weeks but only just made today.

I had a lovely, peaceful New Year’s Eve.  It was just Nicole and I, a bottle of dealcoholized wine, and a few donuts.  Earlier in the day we began a little game we’ve played before … I choose some interesting foods and she creates a meal with them (adding whatever she likes).  This time she’s got a celery root, a mango papaya, some wonton wrappers, lily sprouts, sliced water chestnuts, and some jalapenos to work with.   Tomorrow I’ll see what she comes up with.  I imagine it will be wonderful … it always is.

I brought the new year in with a new image.

Some Canon 5DII test results have been published, more or less confirming what I suspected … This $2700 camera produces hi quality images equaling Canon’s $8000 flagship.

Phil Holland’s comparison shows pretty much the same noise characteristics and detail between the two models.  Unfortunately he shows us the noise only in well illuminated parts of the images, which is not where it usually becomes a problem.

DXO has also measured the 5DII’s performance, and finds it ever so slightly lower than the 1DsII … slight enough that the difference is meaningless.

So like Nikon shooters, Canon shooters are left wondering whether professional features like higher frame rate, better weather seals, etc. are worth a $5000 premium (or somewhat less, looking at street prices).  But whereas Canon shooters can decide no, buy the more affordable model, and get that warm feeling that comes from saving $5000, Nikon users have no $3000 alternatives unless they sell their Nikon glass and change systems.

Both Nikon and Canon have excellent lens lineups, with neither being clearly superior to the other, although Canon’s is larger.  But though neither is better overall, one or the other might be better for a particular photographer, depending on that photographer’s needs.

I’ve thought a lot about switching since Nikon dropped its $8000 bombshell.   But the more I think about the lenses I use the most, the less attractive it seems.   Nikon has released some stunning glass this past year, and Canon has no answer to it.

I’ve been shooting Nikon’s 85mm tilt/shift lens for some years now, and have been wishing, almost praying, for wider angle alternatives.  It happened in January of this year … a new set of three was announced, and the optics are stunning … much better than Canon’s offerings.  Nikon also announced and then released a new 14-24 and 24-70 lens of such quality that Canon shooters are buying them for their Canon bodies.

Yes, I could buy a Canon body and use my Nikon glass on it, but there is a catch.  The adapters available will not pass autofocus signals between the body and the lens, and most won’t pass aperture control either.   Autofocus control I don’t care about … for this kind of work I’ll be focusing manually anyhow.

Aperture control is another matter.   Nikon’s recent glass is all of the G type, meaning that the aperture can only be set electronically.  I’ve found only one adapter that can handle this, and it does it by rotating the lens in the adapter.  I might be able to live with this with some of the lenses, though I’d lose the use of the scalloped lens hoods, but using it with the T/S lens would be impractical I think.

Is there a D3x in my future?  I’m still not sure.