nippontiger

Strange they looked distorted at a lower resolution - even at the lower resolutions it should still look OK just not quite as sharp when you view full screen. You might want to check that the camera is working correctly at all the different resolutions. Personally, although Ill probably never use mine at SD resolutions, I wouldnt be happy having just paid 27k for it if it wasnt working perfectly in all modes.

Its a bit hard to say when we dont know the nature of the distortion you are seeing - if its because of excessive vibration and movement of the camera, then you should also check the mode you are filming in - is it wide angle, or narrow? Any vibrations will be much less distracting in wide angle mode. If you helmet or chest mount, consider filming in 60 fps - you can then slow it down in an editing program - you could get down to about 1/3 speed if filming at 60 fps - much lower and it starts to get a bit choppy - if you really want to slow things down further consider using Twixtor which if y

I guess the snow clouds quickly dissipate as they move over the mountains and dump their moisture - Cortina is that little bit nearer the sea where the snow clouds come from and has fewer big mountains in the line from the sea to the resort than does Goryu/47 so it gets much more snow - this is especially the case at times like now when the systems bringing the snow are not particularly active - just dont have the power to get over those big mountains. If you look at a weather radar animation, you can often see the effect.

What kind of memory card are you using? You should use a minimum Class 4 card - preferably Class 10 if you want to shoot time lapse photos. I picked up a 32 GB Class 10 TDK card for about 2700 yen on Google shopping. So far, it seems to work flawlessly. Ive been sticking mainly to the 720p wide @ 60 FPS which is around the same bandwidth as 1080p @ 30fps. Pop a different card in there to see how it goes.

Love the video! Thanks for posting!

Looks great! I was actually thinking of using that same song for a video myself! Unfortunately my video footage from my Kagura trip yesterday turned out to be a bit of a disaster - I put the camera on my chest but didnt angle it up enough so just ended up with loads of footage of my skis!! Hope to have enough to put together a little slo-mo vid...

If the weather is good I'll see if I can get a few snaps on my iPhone!

I'm gonna take my new gopro camera so all going well, I might be able to put a video together.

Just got my ticket for Kagura tomorrow!

Continuing the green theme, here's me...!

Yeah、I think the minimum number of posts should be increased to something like, say 337? Maybe a minimum topics of 13 or so too...

Statistically, snowsports dont seem particularly dangerous with respect to deaths of participants - I think its something like 0.5 deaths per million visits, but I think that doesnt mean poeple should completely not worry about it - people are doing many different things on the snow and at different levels. If it turns out for example, that almost all of the head injury deaths occured with people taking big air jumps, and then you consider that perhaps only 0.1% of people engaging in snow sports actually do such a thing then things start to look a bit different. It is worth considering these t

...or just not very good at skiing!

Its a bit difficult to say going by the weather forecast - sometimes the forecast has low wind speeds but it turns out quite windy at the top and they close the lifts. If its saying 40+ kph (ie yellow symbols on the forecast on this site) at the top lift I'd say its borderline - if you know its a particularly exposed resort which closes important lifts easily, then it might be best to avoid that day - if its a more sheltered resort, then most likely it will be OK. If its saying anything between 50 and 70 kph (orange symbols) at the top lift, I probably wouldn't bother going out. If its green s

When considering safety legislation for sports, its not so much the numbers that is important so much as the rates - 150 deaths from head injuries might not seem so much, but if you multiply the number of snow-sports hours to match the number of driving hours (eg considering seat-belt laws) then those 150 deaths probably become hundreds of thousands. Snow-sports are changing - people use parks a lot more and so on, the technology is changing and as more people use helmets and their design improves our knowledge about their protective effect increases so I think its not a bad thing if the subje

I could imagine something like this running up to the hundreds of thousands of yen. I wonder if its possible to get some sort of liability insurance to cover for this kind of thing in addition to back-country medical cover?

Unfortunately, the Japanese seem to have this idea that cheese is a type of cream, and bread is a type of sweet! Gotta go to the international store and pay a big wad of cash for a tiny bit of the good stuff from Europe!! Whenever I go back to UK, I try to bring back a load of Stilton - its one the few cheeses which you can actually freeze, keep for ages and its still good when you defrost it! On the slopes Im usually wearing a bright green camo pattern jacket, black pants, black helmet and a red face mask if its snowing. I also have a pair of very distinctive fat skis, so Im easy to spot! Ho

Ive had to spend quite a while looking for skis in the powder in the past and I made some powder ribbons with a couple of metres of red ribbon and a small carabiner from the 100 yen shop. Clip the carabiner to somewhere on the boot and shove the ribbon under the pant cuffs - its easy to clip off when getting on a gondola and so on. However, I have to say I dont really use them - seemed to be more trouble than they were worth with the ribbon often falling out and so on - maybe it would work better with a shorter, thicker ribbon or something or just buy some proper ones. I really wouldnt be happ

Im in a bit of a limbo on this right now as I wanted to come up to Fukushima to ski with a friend, but it looks like she can only get Sundays off. If everybody is heading up on a Saturday I might be able to join that, meet my friend on the saturday night and ski with her on the Sunday but it really depends on her schedule and she cant say as yet as she has only just moved up there to start her new job training. So, it looks like Ill just have to see what everybody else is doing and hope to be able to match my trip up there with the same schedule.

Generally Im in favour of adults being able to make their own informed decisions on things like this, but on the other hand, in most countries it is a legal requirement that people wear a helmet when riding a motorbike or wear a seatbelt in a car yet nobody really calls these things symptoms of a nanny state. So, whats the difference between making wearing a helmet on a motorbike a legal requirement and wearing a helmet while skiing a legal requirement if most of the scientific evidence suggests it saves lives?

Awesomeness! I just got my GoPro Hero 2 delivered today! Hope to get some videos made next time Im out - hopefully the weekend after new year!

I think you should be able to get a train to anywhere in Tokyo if your plane lands at 10, you are not delayed and you get through customs and baggage collection in normal time. Most trains in Tokyo are running at least until midnight. As for checking into hotels - surely you could just tell them that you dont expect to arrive until late?

Yeah, should've come boxing day - I think thats pretty much it for this season - especially up in Niseko....

Sobering news - very sad. Im guessing it was on the left side of the Hercules course as they roped it off later in the day. It really was deep on those steeper sections and I can imagine a tumble on a snowboard and landing in it head-first could have you in some real trouble. Best to be with a friend and always keep and eye on each other in these conditions - even in-resort.

First turns in Kandatsu today! Powder everywhere and a couple of steep runs (Hercules and Orion) which for some strange reason, nobody else seemed to want to touch - must've been waist deep or more....!