Each year the digital memories shot by our “raiders” easily doubles in size !

That makes for great souvenirs, especially when a fellow biker volunteers to spend some winter nights assembling a DVD for the entire group. During the CTC 2007 our 20 bikers ended up with 50 GB digital memories... a gigantic task.

Therefore some useful tips :

1. •Don’t start shooting until your subject is really close. This saves 90% ballast...
   

2. •Do stop shooting well before your subject disappears on the horizon. Another 90%  :-)
   

3. •Shoot short takes. Twenty seconds is way too long...
   

4. •Always include a foreground in your landscape shots : a biker, your bike or part of it, a helmet, a back pack, a goat, a flower...
   

5. •Only use optical zoom. Digital zooming produces “jaggies” and “tremble shots”.
   

6. •Comment loudly while you film - funny remarks are great !
   

7. •Make sure your subject is really close if you want it to be understandable when speaking.
   

8. •Wind noise and sqealing brakes drown out all comments...
   

9. •Protect your camera against shocks, moisture, dust and crashes.
   

10. •Mount your camera on your helmet if you can : the only place where it won’t shake.
    

11. •Biking and shooting with one hand each often ends in disaster
    

12. •Keep the lense clean and dry.
    

13. •Keep your fingers away from the lense.
    

14. •Don’t display a date tag on each shot.
    

15. •Choose a modern storage format, such as AVI, MOV, JPG.
    

16. •Make sure the creation date of the digital file doesn’t get altered (useful for sorting !)
    

17. •Don’t forget your battery charger and socket adaptor !
    

18. •Always use the highest available resolution.
    

19. •Shoot pictures in landscape mode : portrait mode does not fit well on computer screens...
    

20. •Make timely backups on El Camino Loco’s laptop.