timmy's got the coffee right (the first time for me in about a year's worth of early morning visits) and the drive up the malahat was a blast. at the top we ran into the same folks i ran into last year, exchanged hellos and the me an' the boyz started stretching our hardware. as usual, that was a simple exercise for me - same old camera atop a recently updated but still pretty standard tripod - and a bit more complicated for the others. out comes davin's new 30D (drool), there's gurton (not updated as of this writing) bolting a 17-85 image stabilized to his xt, and then fez produces a nikkor 80-200 f-2.frickin.8 out of his camera bag to mate with his d70s. i alsoran, as did sheena with her a80.

my camera's far from shabby, i still am verifond of it and it is capable of stunning images when cajoled correctly. that said, when it comes to canon and nikon (among other, but not all) dslrs, well that's a whole 'nother league entirely, especially when you start ditching the kit lenses. it was with that in mind that i decided to do things a little differently, messing up the settings on the camera a bit and using my tripod's fluid-damped pan head to recast the details of the rise less how they actually were and more the way i tend to remember moments so quickly lost to time. i think it worked.

as for those who didn't make the field trip but did do their homework, so far it's krishen with the solstice rise from florida, and for those unsited, submit your homework assignments to the ol' panometrical gmail for inclusion on this page in the next few days, we're looking forward to them. not sure how many of you there might be, i do know many slept in (pretty understandable), and that the weather in a couple of promised places was less than conducive. regardless, this was lots and lots of fun and we'll be doing it all over again next year. and the year after that.