Most of the time I like planning my images out, but occasionally something exceptional happens while the capture is happening. Most of the time this results in a bad image, but in this case a sudden gust of wind blew snow into the air to give this such a surreal feeling. The actual image I wanted to capture was pretty bland too, just got lucky on this one.

Nikon D200, Nikkor 18-55 @ 31mm 1/1000 F16 ISO 100

Updated 3/18

A pretty straightforward way to maximize the outfitting in your Jackson Kayak. What you’ll need: An electric drill and medium sized drill bit. As they say, you have to break some eggs to make an omelet. In this case we’re drilling holes in a whitewater kayak. Don’t worry, it will still float.

Stephen Wright is the pioneer of this process, it’s not for all body types but works wonders for some. Maybe it’s a short person thing?

It’s also worth noting that if you have problems with your legs falling asleep, raising the hip pads up and moving them backwards can cure the problem. At least for me.

It’s worth noting that the 2010 Crosslink Jackson boats come outfitted in a very similar matter, and linear less so. The time to put in extra holes greatly increases production cost, and I’d rather do it myself than pay more for a boat.

The goal is to get the hip pads mounted higher so they help hold you in the boat. I found for my body they were more “butt pads” than hip pads with the factory setup. To do this we’ll add one hole to the cockpit rim, behind the seat mounting tab. Then we’ll re-route the hip pad webbing through the large backband hole in front of the seat, back behind the seat attachment point and up through the new hole to the buckle. . See the image below for hole placement.

Note the new image, this is how I am currently doing my outfitting. I just use the backband hole that is already in front instead of drilling a new one. Works just as well and saves some energy.

When using the drill it’s possible to go through both layers of plastic and end up with a hole through outside cockpit rim. Bad news! To avoid this use a high rpm on the drill and light pressure, going slow. If you press down too hard on the drill, it’s likely to bite in and start pulling it’s own way through, possibly through that second layer. I make the front hole horizontal and the rear vertical. I’d imagine both could be vertical, but be sure the rear one is, otherwise it will be tough to get the webbing through.

To feed the strap through, push it through the front hole first, then pull enough through to loop it behind the seat attachment. Once you have it behind the seat, go up through the last hole and then back down to the buckle. I put my backband above the hip pad mounting webbing. Tighten it up! (older style with two holes, no need for both)

How much of a difference? Check out the side view, the hip pads sit slightly higher than the rim of the cockpit.

Since I had the drill out, I decided to do more while I was at it. People did this fairly often on the Dagger boats when they had the heavy rotomolded seat/front pillar combo. I just did it to the bulkhead in my Hero. It probably only saves an ounce per brace, and takes too long to make it worthwhile to do at the factory, but if you have the free time, why not?

Tamron 1.4 AF SP Teleconverter compared to Nikkor 50mm 1.8 AF-D

Teleconverters are a small, light adapters used to extend the focal length of a lens. A teleconverter simply magnifies the center of the image circle on a lens, thus extending its respective range. The most common ranges are 1.4x and 2x teleconverters. 1.4x teleconverters lose one stop of light and tend to maintain good image quality when used with the right lens. 2x teleconverters rarely give good results because it’s just too much magnification, and lose two full stops of light in the process.

There are two distinct disadvantages to using teleconverters. The first is that they reduce the amount of light getting to the sensor, making it harder to focus and keep up a high enough shutter speed for sports. The second disadvantage is that if the lens is not of superb optical quality, any flaws will be magnified by the tc. Consumer zooms are generally a no-no with teleconverters, image quality will be very sub standard. On the other hand, a good prime lens and tc can make an amazing combination of light weight, good image quality, and cheap overall cost.

Why Tamron? I am generally a big fan of Nikkor optics, but their teleconverters are about the same quality as Tamron’s SP line of tcs, but the Nikkors only offer AF for AF-S lenses. The Tamron offers AF with older Nikon screw drive AF lenses, but not AF-S. I don’t own any AF-S lenses, and the Tamron’s are under half the cost, so the choice was obvious!

Taylor Robertson, North Fork American River.

Nikon D700, Nikon 75-150 Series E @ 150mm + Tamron 1.4 TC = 210mm @ 1/800 F5.6 (aka 8 with a TC) ISO 200 Post processing: Saturation +50, 0.1 pixel @ 25% Smart Sharpening.

Now it’s easy to make just about any image look good online with the use of smart sharpening, so the truth is in the crop. 100% crop no sharpening:

Image quality holds up pretty well for the combination of a $100 (used) TC and $70 (used) archaic zoom!

Now if you combine the tc, and a cheap, long old prime, with a cropped camera, you can get an incredibly long and surprisingly good lens for not too much.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 300mm F4.5 EDIF + Tamron TC = a 588mm F6.3 for only $200 (not counting the D200 of course).

Moonrise over Sacramento.

Nikon D200, Nikkor 300mm F4.5 EDIF, Tamron AF SP 1.4x TC @ 30 seconds F8 ISO 100.

So is a TC worth adding to your bag? I say yes if you use primes or high quality zooms (noting that some work well with tc’s, many don’t.) Nope if you have consumer zooms, or the money to buy high end long telephoto lenses.

Nikon D700, Phoenix 100mm 3.5 MF Macro @ 1/125 F22 ISO 640

Late fall, 2006, Vera Cruz, Mexico. My first international expedition, and about halfway through while eating a nice dinner I find something hard in my mouth. It’s part of my broken tooth, no idea why or how, but amazingly it doesn’t hurt. Returning home from that trip I had exactly enough money to buy food and gas to make it until my next paycheck. Amazingly no more problems for the next few years, and being a broke kayaker, I continued to ignore the problem since there was no pain involved. Plus I spent all that money on camera gear, which brings you this site

Unfortunately that all seemed to change this weekend, it was a little sore on Friday so I called the local clinic and found out Tuesday would be the soonest appointment. Last night it peaked into some of the worst pain of my life, right up there with when I fractured my skull several years ago. One of those moments where having the extra $ to just go to a dentist of choice in the morning would have been really nice. So, no overly coherent updates or anything due to vidocin and valum, my friends that are helping me make the wait for tomorrow, when I can spend the rest of my savings on some long overdue dental work.

Before it got bad though, a sweet day in the Giant Gap:

Nikon D700, Nikon 75-150 Series E @ 75mm 1/800 F5.6 ISO 800