Been a while since the last update.  As you can see from the cover pick, I’m already sick of winter and winter isn’t even here yet.  Oh to be on the trail again!  There’s still a bazillion things to do here…just not enough time to do them.  Still working on updating the galleries in Picasa and dumping the galleries here.  Google Photos doesn’t have the flexibility I’m looking for in the way of organization in albums and such.  At least not yet.  They did make a big acquisition recently, snatching up Fly Labs, a popular iOS photo and video app developer.   Development for iOS will end, making all those Apple-heads using their products unhappy, but maybe it’s an indication of big things to come with Google Photos (which will hopefully include organizing your photos anyway you want … not how they’re currently ruling over them!).  And while we’re on the subject of Google, check out this 3D VR app called Cardboard for your Android camera!  I haven’t tried it yet but it looks like it would be awesome!

Now then, Bubba at work turned Loonie and I on to the Rokinon 14mm Wide Angle Lens and Loonie got a chance to play around with that a bit on the last trip.  The cover photo on the post from October 28^th of the bridge over Middle Prong was taken using that lens and we were practically on top of the thing!  Amazing!

Rokinon’s 14mm f/2.8 IF ED UMC Lens

Sucks that Canon wants like 10x that for their equivalent but it is what it is.  Now, what would be really cool would be to head to the top of Max Patch or Gregory Bald one calm, clear winter night when there’s no moon out and see what kind of long exposure sky shots we could get with one of those things.  But, then again, we don’t have the winter gear yet for such an outing so we’ll see what else we can come up with.  Bubba’s full of ideas (among other things).  Anyway, she’s considering that lens.  One other immediate camera need is a ball mount of some sort.  We’re still looking at those but should be deciding on something soon.

Let’s see.  As for gear projects, I think we’re going to hold off until we have all of the camera gear in hand and then lay everything out.  Everything means backpacking gear AND camera gear so we have an idea of what we’re really going to need and what would be the most practical way to carry it.  It all needs to be readily accessible as well.  Should be interesting as I’m not the brightest bulb in the box.

Ah, interesting article I ran across recently.  I knew various companies had been working on coming up with a viable way to mass produce synthetic spider silk.  If they were to succeed, it could totally revolutionize the manufacturing of all sorts of products.  Two companies have seemed to figured it all out, Spiber and Bolt Threads.  I’ll spare you all the details of this potentially amazing freaking stuff…you can follow the links above…but Spiber actually teamed up with The North Face and made a parka out of the stuff.  No details on the specs but it looks cool.  There could be some amazing products coming once this stuff gets rolling.

The North Face & Siber’s “Moon Parka”

I’ll be posting regular updates on the preparations for the Spring 2016 AT trip (me and Deep Woods).  Who knows, maybe there will be some new, top secret uber-lightweight gear coming along.  You know, just to piss off Deep Woods.  He deserves it.  I’ll have to see what I can come up with.  Stay tuned.

More to come…