Neil_B

Some photos of my local riding on Friday of this week. I have a seven mile loop along French Creek. Largely flat, which is a rarity for riding in this area. Well Friday I felt like a kid again, and here's what I did:

When I crossed French Creek for the first time, the creek looked low, and the woods were so inviting, I had to dismount:



I thought it would be neat to photograph the bridge from the middle of the creek, and since there were lots of exposed rocks, I carefully picked my way across:



You can see I didn't have too hard a time of it:



OK, it's not much of a bridge, but still, I did take it mid-stream:



Photos taken, on to a more impressive bridge. Photos of that appear in the next thread post.

Neil_B

Part two of my local loop on Friday. This is not a bike trail, folks. French Creek Road is gravel.



At the end of French Creek Road is Sheeder-Hall Bridge, built in 1850, and the oldest bridge in Chester County:



How much of the bridge is original construction I don't know. I can imagine the bridge has had to have some reconstruction over the years. The township's other covered bridge, the Kennedy Bridge on Seven Stars Road, is a replica of the original which burnt down in 1986.





I hope the spider making its home on the bridge doesn't object to my photographing its web with French Creek as a backdrop:





But Roark has been patiently waiting for me to finish. It's time to ride home.



And so ends another ride in the country. It's a nice place to visit. It's even nicer to live there.

ironhorse3

The covered bridge is a great subject for photography. Nice job. What camera?

Neil_B

Thank you. It's a low end HP. 5.0 megapixils. It's buggy, and my landing on it in a crash six weeks ago hasn't helped matters. I can't tell if the blurriness is from the camera, or from my inability to hold my hands still. Any suggestions for a new camera? I'd like to upgrade, but money is tight now.

Neil_B

A couple more photos of the Sheeder-Hall Bridge:

Mazama

What a nice day. Thanks for sharing your pictures.

keracer

Lots of reviews,comparisons,price matching and whatever for Digicams here:

https://www.dpreview.com/

kenseth03

Sometimes you just got to stop and take it all in. It looks like a beautiful place to ride.

Wogster

There are some very nice cameras around these days, I suggest either Canon or Nikon, they often have better optics, then some of the other companies, since cameras are their primary business, and they usually make their own lenses. Unless you like making monster sized prints, stick with lower Megapixel (6.0 is sufficient for most people), images are smaller, and there is less noise in the image at higher EV (Exposure Valuation often erroneously expressed as ISO ) settings.

The hardest thing to choose is the zoom level, some cameras have a very narrow zoom range, as small as 3x, and others have very wide zoom ranges as much as 12x, then there are DSLR cameras where you can swap lenses, and effectively have an infinite zoom range, with the right lenses. Of course, having an infinite zoom range, requires an infinite bank account as well. General rule, the wider the zoom range, the more space that gets taken up, and the heavier the camera. There are some nice deals around though, if you can keep your current camera patched together until after Christmas, that's the best time to buy camera gear.

st0ut

BTW wernt you quitting last week

bcc

Nice photos - covered bridges is something we don't really have in this part of the world. I'd recommend the Panasonic range of cameras - my wife has one, and it's excellent for most uses, although a little 'noisy' in low light. Excellent zoom range, good optics and relatively inexpensive.

I just sold mine to buy a DSLR, though. Photography and cycling are expensive hobbies
As keracer pointed out, dpreview is well worth a read.

10 Wheels

I bought a Cannon Power-Shot A530, closeout price ,Radio Shack $79.
Takes Good stills and my granddaughter showed me how to take. Vid's with it.
Mounted on handle bars.
You might like to use one for videos also.
I enjoy your pics and stories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZjF-EE9emU

Alathea

I would suspect those beams are probably original, possibly removed for other work and put back up. You might see some square nails, or hand pounded (they look rough and ungalvanized) ones if you look hard enough, too. That bridge is really neat-I love old construction.

bdinger

Great report, Neil! I too had a ride this morning where I just kind of wandered at my own pace, and enjoyed the scenery around me for the most part. Riding in the country really does good things for the soul, I need to get a better camera than my cellphone so I can start posting some pics.

FWIW I have an old Sony DSC-S70 that I love to death. It's too big, though, so I've been quietly looking for Nikon Coolpix cameras on the eBay.

mesasone

The Canon powershot series is good if you like compact cams. Might look for one of the models with IS. I bought one for my brother for christmas for around 150 I think.

Personally, I use a Canon 40D, and have a 300D as a back up. Haven't really found a way to carry it on my bike that I'm comfortable with... and I hate neck straps.

Alathea

IS= image stabilization for you non-camera types.

Wogster

I use a 300D, and it usually gets wrapped in a sweater, and stuffed in a pannier. Thinking about rigging up a handlebar bag, as a place for the camera, although best would probably be a foam lined Pelican case, but those are expensive and larger ones can be heavy......

mesasone

I really like the Naneu Pro K3L backpack, but I haven't quite figured out how to mount it to a rack like a pannier with out putting mounting hardware on it that would make it uncomfortable to wear. It would be nice for touring thought, as you could keep camera, laptop, etc in the a bag that is easy to carry around when away from the bike.

Also might get a bit heavy - the bag itself is a hefty 5.85 pounds, 40D is 1.8 and the two lens I would likely take would be another 2 pounds. If you add another lens and a three+ pound laptop, you're getting up to 15 lbs.

The 300D + one lens would be the way to go for shorter trips, I think... could just wrap it up in a sweater or such as you say. I'm not too worried about the 300d taking some battle damage.

Neil_B

I still may.

Stujoe

Nice shots and looks like a great place to ride. I really enjoy seeing photos of rides.

And since we are on a camera theme...I have a Nikon D50 but I don't take it on the bike any more since I got an Oly E510 kit and take it for rec rides. On my commutes, I just have the Panny TZ4 with me. The dSLRs are pretty much overkill unless photography is a hobby to you. My TZ4 is nice for the zoom range but I personally don;t think the overall image quality is exceptional.