For the two pandemic years I’ve been working out of my unheated garage world headquarters in Parksville, B.C., I’ve been heading down to the ocean almost evert day at dawn.
Sound boring?
Actually, every dawn has been different. The tides. The weather. The seasons. But I only once saw a bear.
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One reason I bought the Trek Checkpoint was to be able to cycle more rugged trails with a fully loaded touring bike.
How did that work out for me?
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I’ve experimented with many tripods over the past 2 years. CRITICAL gear as I mostly travel solo and want to take photos and videos of myself while adventuring.
Weight and volume are super important. I can take them all on some bikepacking trips. But for hiking, I usually only take two of the smallest. All of these tripods can hold any of my 3 small cameras.
My favourite is the Miggo Splat. Super tough. Very reliable. BUT I did manage to break one.
Even better — but not as durable — is the Fotopro uFO 2.
Like the Splat, it can wrap around fence posts, tree branches, almost anything.
Least likely to make a hiking or bikepacking trip is my Neewer 56 inches/142 centimeters tripod. It’s good — but 2.73 pounds/1.24 kilograms is often too heavy.
I’m not much of a selfie stick guy, but the new-to-me 3m / 9ft Insta360 Extended Edition Selfie Stick has me intrigued. I MIGHT even end up getting one of their expensive Action Cameras.
I’ll often take it along despite the 365gm / 12.8oz load.
I bought the lightest JOBY GorillaPod I could. Only 325 Grams. But it’s pretty flimsy for anything more than a phone camera. I’ve never had much luck with JOBY. Those arms break easily.
So far I’m really liking my new DJI Mini SE drone. Until I crash it 🤔 … drone footage can replace tripod for long establishing shots.
Shooting video of yourself when alone can be tricky. Here’s how I’m doing it, so far.
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As my low end DJI Mini SE has NO OBSTACLE AVOIDANCE, I wanted to see how difficult it would be to shoot in the trees. 🤔
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Back in the 1990s I edited a lot of VHS videos — gak 😕 — and the worst aspect was dealing with audio.
Now that video editing is my hobby, I’m finding that sound design is the most interesting part. Many video creators think it’s the most important part in 2022.
That could be true — BUT many folks watch video on their phones with audio muted. So I also edit to be presentable VIDEO ONLY.
Here’s the best introduction to the topic I’ve seen.
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PLAN is visit the remote Faroe Islands summer 2022 as part of my PLANNED Norway, Faroes & Iceland cycling tour. 🤞
Weird and evocative.
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I finally own a 4K monitor. It was discounted everywhere over holidays 2021 for CAD $750. On the other hand, it took a couple of weeks to make delivery. I ended up getting it from Costco.
I shoot video mostly in 4k. Edit it down to 1080p for export to YouTube.
Someday I’ll be exporting 4k.
Based mainly on reviews from RTings.com I decided on the X85J:
Some customizations
If you want to make HDR content brighter and don’t mind losing image accuracy, change to the ‘Vivid’ Picture Mode, and set Contrast to ‘Max’. These settings result in a much brighter image …
We measured the HDR brightness in the ‘Custom’ Picture Mode, before calibrating the TV, with Brightness at max, Contrast at ’90’, and Color Tone set to ‘Expert 2’.
I’ll mainly be using it as a second monitor for my laptop — when in Parksville.
And use it as a TV, as well. The voice command is limited, but useful.
Actually, it’s Director Sam Brown and the video editors who created this masterpiece.
For me, the song is only OK.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. It was filmed in one day!
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
I tried and failed to fly a DJI Spark drone when it was released 2017. Did not once get it off the ground. It was a dead weight on my Patagonia trip that year.
In 2021 the (Mavic) Mini SE is their entry level model. CAD $349. … How long before I break it? 😀
I’ve either gotten a lot smarter — or their drones are much easier to operate now.
Click PLAY or watch the 1st flight on YouTube.
While in Europe, my first generation SILICON MacBook Pro purchased November 2020 began to fail. Slowly the display started to go black. I ended up using just half the screen that was still visible. As I post it’s completely black and can only be used with an external monitor.
Just over a year old, the warranty was void. Happily, I’d purchased AppleCare extended warranty and will try to have the 2020 fixed.
In the meantime, on November 25th, I ordered the base model of the upgraded 2022 version.
One of my online gurus, Serge M from Saskatoon, had his laptop screen crack after he dropped it. So purchased the same machine at about the same time. Base model 14‑inch MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM and only 512 GB internal memory. Both of us will store our large files on external SSD drives.
Kraig warned me that my old 2020 laptop might choke with only 8GB RAM. And he was right — though it didn’t happen very often. And only rarely with Final Cut Pro and once Pixelmator Pro.
Serge tested my new machine editing 4 simultaneous 4K streams. No problem. That’s far more processing power than I’ll need for years. 😇
iJustine tested even more extreme use cases, and was shocked how easily the base model handled video editing.
So … the cheapest base model of the 2022 MacBook Pro is powerful enough for anything I’d want to do over the next few years.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
For the first time ever Apple bungled my online purchase. I ended up having to cancel.
NEXT I tried to buy one in stock from an Apple store in Vancouver. They bungled that, as well.
FINALLY I was able to get one from BestBuy Canada with only 2 weeks delay in delivery over Christmas.
NOT CHEAP — I paid CAD $2500 AND $300 in taxes. I’ll be paying a few hundred more for an extended warranty.
Rick McCharles 