Winter overnighter with the kids

The kids wanted to go on a short overnighter and Thursday evening this week turned out to be a good time. I didn't want it to be too cold, since the boys haven't slept outdoors that much in the winter before, but this time the weather forecast was promising. A night temperature of around -8C isn't very cold, but it still has a wintery feel to it.

I left work a little earlier, but we still got started later than I would have wanted. Fortunately, the day is now noticeably longer than two months ago during the winter solstice. The sun is now up for 9 h 43 min, compared to 5 h 43 min two months ago. We started walking around sunset.

I used a pulk to get the bulky sleeping bags, a tent and a little firewood with me. Check out Mark's instructions for modifying the Paris Expedition pulk. Note the Ikea bags.

When we arrived at the Piikkiö Linnavuori shelter, there was a couple there grilling sausage, but they soon went home and left the fire to us.

The kids didn't want to sleep in the shelter, so I had to put up the tent, which I had brought for the unlikely case that the shelter would be occupied. The temperature was now a clear and crisp -9C.

The following thing to do was to grill our sandwhiches.

The weather was still clear, but there were clouds coming in, which would mean that it wouldn't get any colder.

The boys soon thought it to be a little cold and the suggestion to go to the sleeping bags got support. The sleeping bags soon returned the warmth and we went to sleep fairly early.

I got up a little before seven in the morning and started a fire. This time I even brought a small axe, which made it very simple to start the fire. With a only knife there is usually a lot more work.

After a while it was time for breakfast. It was now warmer with -4C and cloudy.

Some time after eight in the morning we got going again.

Yours truly, photographed by the seven-year-old boy.

Continuing on the winter trail.

Soon back at the car.

A nice little excursion again and some quality time with the kids.

Vajosuo Beer Ski Tour 2013

The not yet quite traditional Vajosuo Beer Ski Tour of MTB-Turku took place this weekend. We've done it once before with a good number of participants. This time only me, JJ and Timo, an acquaintance of JJ:s, participated. The weather forecast was ok, with the temperature a few degrees below freezing. We intended to do a circular route covering some larger mires in the Kuhankuono area, in fact pretty similar to the route I took on a crust ride two years ago.

We started a little after three in the afternoon. The temperature was around -2C and the snow fairly wet, causing it to stick to the skis and destroy the glide. The first section was through a forest.

JJ

 Timo

A forest road section on the way to the lake Lakjärvi. A Land Rover with snow chains had come pretty far.

The Lakjärvi shelter was occupied by a couple of guys intending to do some fishing.

Skiing on the Lammenrahka mire. It started to snow lightly.

After Lammerahka came the Laidassuo mire with a short passage with denser forest in between. It was also getting darker now.

We occasionally followed a fresh ski track, at most a few hours old, the maker of which seemed to have made great route choices. Unfortunately, off the mire the route was no longer that great and took us through some denser forest.

After a while we came upon a ski trail in good shape that in the beginning took us in the right direction. After a while it didn't feel right, though, and after consulting the map it became clear that we had made an orienteering mistake costing us about one hour. It was now totally dark.

Eventually we arrived at the Vajosuo shelter, after about five hours of skiing. There was another group of six there, but there was an empty firewood shed just some fifty meters from the shelter, so there would be place for all of us. It turned out that this other group had taken almost the same route as us, spending the previous night at the Lakjärvi shelter. JJ quickly started a fire.

The fire was used to grill sandwhiches and sausage, in addition to melting snow to water. I'm personally not that fond of melting snow to water on an open fire, since I find the smoky taste more suitable for a good whisky rather than water.

The other group went to sleep a little earlier than we did, leaving us at the shelter and fire. Despite the name, this was not a drinking trip. I had one liter of beer with me and the others slightly more. We went to to sleep about one hour after midnight. I slept well in my 600 g summer down bag with a 600 g Prodigy X quilt on top. It was only about -2C during the night, so the summer bag would have been enough, though not entirely comfortable. With this combo I was very warm and comfy.

JJ got up at eight in the morning to make a fire, shortly followed by me. The other group had been up for an hour already.

Breakfast and water for coffee.

Some time before ten in the morning we started skiing again, starting with the Vajosuo mire.

Entering the Kurjenrahka mire.

Some wet place still on the mire.

The last section was very slow, since the skis didn't glide at all. Looking under the skis, this was no surprise.

JJ scraping off the ice under the skis. This would help for a minute or so.

We skied on though, and it took around three hours to get back to the parking place.

A very nice little overnighter again, along a very nice and interesting route. Thanks a lot to the participants.

GoPro Hero3 Black Edition First Impressions

I wrote a little piece about my view on action cameras last fall. Since then the GoPro Hero3 Black Edition has entered the market and caused quite a buzz. I read all I could find about it, and while most of it were just hype without any actual testing, I did find enough solid information about it to buy one. My interest is not the traditional action camera jump-out-of-a-perfectly-functioning-airplane or watch-me-ride-15-minutes-with-the-same-view stuff, though see how I could add some dynamics to my videos by some POV angles. For me the action camera should allow me to get some footage in difficult (e.g. wet) conditions in addition to the POV angles.

On paper the GoPro Hero3 is very impressive, with a good number of video modes, including some potentially very interesting ones. Read this article for a good overview of them. It also has a built-in WiFi interface that works great with my Android smartphone. With the included housing it can take almost anything.

The form factor is in my opinion poor compared to that of the Contour Roam, which could be mounted just about anywhere without problems. The only situation where the GoPro form factor is better is for the chest harness. I also liked the Contour Roam weather proofing better, since it could take most ordinary situations like rain and water down to one meter without an extra housing. With the GoPro the extra housing is in practice always necessary and it does affect the video sharpness at least marginally.

So how good it is? Some systematic tests by knowledgeable people show that it actually is pretty good, with the video quality showing good resolution (though still far from the nominal resolutions) and color rendition.
My first impressions below are non-scientific and geared towards my own intended use, so take them for what they are. (Note that I'm using the 25 fps modes mainly, since I have some ambitions outside pure internet use. Faster frame rates are generally easier to use).


As can be seen from the video, the fisheye effect is pretty strong, which in my opinion is the biggest drawback. It can be dealt with in different ways, but I would prefer a more straight image. In some situations the fisheye effect won't be noticeable, in other situations the image can be defished with acceptable quality, especially from 2.7K source, and in some cases the medium FOV could be used to lessen the effect. Of course, there might be situations where the fisheye effect is desirable, but I generally prefer trees to be as straight as they are in the real world.

The GoPro is nowadays very easy to use and you can actually frame it fairly accurately with a smartphone. The Black Edition also includes a WiFi remote, but I don't see myself using it much when the smartphone interface is so much better.

The GoPro contains fairly good timelapse functionality, but in my opinion it is limited by the auto exposure and fisheye lens. See the video containing a short timelapse shot with the GoPro. The exposure might have been better with the spot light meter on, but I think I will do my timelapses mostly on the Canon S90, since it has full manual control and a lot better optics. For self documenting I do see some possible use of the timelapse functionality, though.

The 4K mode was a disappointment, but I guess it is more a marketing gimmick than anything else. With 15 fps it was never good enough for motion, but some so called reviews hinted that it would be a good way to get a fast frame rate for 8 megapixel stills. I tried it and the stills are just video frame grabs with similar quality. The resolution and colors are nowhere near real 8 megapixel photos. Here is an example, with the full size version being here.

What more to say? The battery life is poor and on my latest outing I got about 12 minutes of use of it. Granted, it was cold and the GoPro was in ambient temperature all the time, but my Panasonic GH2 was in the same temperature and the first battery lasted one and a half day with lots of pictures and about 30 minutes of video. I still haven't been able to get a GoPro spare battery, they seem to be out of stock at least here in Finland.

Finally, I think the video below shows the amount of POV angles I'm intending to use. Maybe I could have a few more, but I'm not going to overuse the them. Most of the video is shot with the Panasonic GH2, but the timelapse and the POV shots were done with the GoPro.