Sunday, January 8, 2012

The Great White North - Well, Not Exactly.

I did a motorcycle ride from Calgary to Canmore and back again today.  Nice news at any time, but when you're riding a motorcycle into the Canadian Rocky
Mountains on January 8th it's pretty sweet!

I hooked up with Conrad at his place and we agreed to try to get to Canmore.  The ultimate destination being The Grizzly Paw restaurant and microbrewery. If things didn't work out then we'd turn around and evaluate our options at the time.  As it turned out, with the exception of a couple of wet spots in the shade (and a very ice packed parking lot at a gas station) the road conditions were bare and dry! 

We saw some guys riding on the ice at Ghost Reservoir, and stopped to watch them make a few laps; would be fun to try some day!  Other than that, we saw maybe three or four other bikes out on the roads. 

The weather afforded us the chance to make it all the way to the Grizzly Paw for a beer and a bite.  The snow started to fly as we made our exit from Canmore, but it wasn't long before we were kissed with sunshine as we hit the foothills.

View from the Grizzly Paw - Never seen the patio empty before!

 All-in-all, it is was a fantastic start to the 2012 riding season!

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Nikon D4 Is Here!

Even better than imagined.  A built in web server?!?!  You gotta be kidding me!  Can't wait till CES and hope to get my hands on this baby.  Visit nikon.com for more amazing specs :)

Thursday, January 5, 2012

D4 Launch at CES?

So all of the chatter says that Nikon will launch the D4 at CES on Tuesday, January 10th in Las Vegas.  If their booth size and location is any indication, chances are high it's true.  By comparison, Nikon's tiny display was set up in a tiny conference room in a part of the convention center that I, along with all of the other attendee's,  didn't even know existed!  This year, their location is large and centrally located in the Central Hall.

According to a leaked document (which reportedly was dated January 10, 2012) that was briefly posted then promptly removed some specs include:
  • Lighter body
  • Native ISO range of 100 to 102,400
  • Expanded ISO range of 50 to 204,800
  • 91,000 pixel metering sensor
  • Face detection (seems odd for a camera of this caliber)
  • Illuminated function buttons (I like this feature)
  • A plethora of video features
  • And supposedly NOT produced in Thailand - Japan perhaps?
  • Retail expected to be US$6,000
No word on frame rate, but it's expected to be around 11 fps, somewhat faster than the 9 fps rate of the D3S.  A nice bump for us sport shooters!

There's a press event scheduled for tomorrow which may announce the new body.  Here's hoping!

I'm hoping to get my hands on the camera in Vegas next week!!