On the Road

I spent most of today on the road. Okay, not most, but enough to make my ass sore. Fortunately, good company relieves sore posteriers. We started off at around 11 after many attempts to wake me and a short diversion to our favorite breakfast nook in Issaquah. After carbo loading and asking why I had to eat that last blintz, we were on the road towards somewhere along the Oregon coast. Truth is, we didn't know where, but that's part of the fun, right? We spent around 4 hours on the road, stopping once or twice for lookouts / bathroom breaks, and ended up (partly on my behest) at Cannon Beach. We arrived around 3, and the girls were kind enough to let me meander down the beach with my photo gear for a couple hours while they got the hotel and (apparently) dinner arrangements squared away. I got some reasonable shots, although the main drag of Cannon beach is lacking in much beyond a couple stacks and some neat beach houses. No matter, the sky was wonderful, and the moon was rising, so I made due. As the sun was setting, I got a call informing me of impending dinner plans at a local spot called the "Wayfarer" (cool name). Apparently they had good seafood. Well, it wasn't really good…it was FUCKING ASTOUNDING. Ugh, I can feel the butter coursing through my veins yet. I polished off a 14 oz steak + crab + some chocolate desert thing that I really didn't need. Oh, and I learned what a Tiger Woods is (hint, also good).

Coming down from my sugar high, I meandered back to the room and started dumping photos on my laptop. Some bittersweetness therein, unfortunately. The good, I suppose, is that _wow_ the 1ds mark ii files are detailed. Throughout the ISO range simply better than my 7D. Stretching colors / exposure nets much cleaner files, high ISO perf is astoundingly good, low ISOs simply blow the 7D away. I really thought I would be getting a camera that performed as good to worse than my 7D, with the benefit of being full frame. No, it's fast becoming my landscape machine. 16-35 + mkii and 70-200 + 7d is a great(!) combo to walk around with. I couldn't really be happier. The bad is…well, not that bad…but HOLY CRAP is the mkii's sensor dirty. Oh man, I've never seen it this bad. There are probably 40 or so noticable dust spots at f/16 @ 16mm…making post a fun process, to say the least. Worse stil is I left my cleaning gear at home, AND I don't have sensor swabs for an FF cam. In the end, it's not really a big deal, but I'm going to have some fun posting files from this trip…

Well, all that said, I'm heading to bed – going to try and wake up before the sun tomorrow. Before I go, here are some photos.

Best wishes and happy trails to you.