cbechtold's Long Travel IFS Crawler Tacoma Build and BS Thread

Id recommend doing photo stacking vs a 45min exposure. Results are much better.

 

You're probably right, but it never hurt to try anyways.

 

I didn't like the results from doing a long exposure vs stacked.



Long:

First Swirl by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr

stacked:

Comets by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr


Stacking also has a few other advantages. If you plane or satellite flys over head and you are doing a long exposure..your screwed. If you stack, you can go through the 3 frames its in and take it out and it won't impact the photos.

You can do the comet effect I did above.

You can also easily stack on other photos to light paint the foreground how you want.

M~D~U-134.jpg by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr

Both work though. But most pros stack. Some will do custom exposure lengths like doing 10 frames at 120sec ea or something, but most still stack. You can do focus stacking too.

 

I'll have to look more into stacking, but thanks for the advice! I'll have to give it a shot next time I'm out camping.

 

yeah all you need is an intervalometer. I shoot 30sec at f4 iso 1250 on my camera. Thats another pro. You get rid of a lot of noise by stacking so shooting at the higher iso isn't as bad.

You can get external ones or depending on your camera it'll have on built in or you can add Magic Lantern firmware to it for one as well.

 

Okay. Sounds simple enough. The 6D Mark II has a minimum shutter speed of 30 seconds so I'll mess around with that first before getting an intervalometer. Again, thanks for the advice!

 

I wasn't concerned about noise, more so with fuel mileage

Yes! I took some neat low-light photos while I was camping in Australia because I was in a photography class so I was able to use a DSLR. I really enjoyed using that camera.

Those stacked photos look super cool

 

Dude yes. You have any good resources? I have been watching a lot of Joshua Cripps videos for most of my learning so far.

 

not really. I just read how to do it. And went out and tried it. Star photos take a LOT of effort. Both in capture and post. You will learn quickly what to do and what not to do.

I did watch a few youtube vids to get the basics down on PS to do the stacking. But its been so long I don't remember which ones

I learned much more by just doing it myself and trying stuff out. The biggest things I can say to do is make sure your focus is right, which is hard to do at night with cheaper lenses. Don't cheap out on a tripod if you can help it. a slight breeze can fuck shit up with a light tripod, as well as even touching the camera to adjust something.

And don't believe everything you read or see on youtube. You can do a lot of shit that isn't normal to get cool results. Practice often and experiment often in places that "don't matter" as much so that when you are up at 8000' in the middle of no where on a trip and you suddenly realize that its a perfect night for a star shot you are ready for the moment. Because trust me, you don't want to fuck up when the moment presents it self. Or forget a piece of gear to do it. Its well worth it but it'll take at least an hour to 4 hours to shoot something and around the same time to edit it haha

Im lucky i can get away from the light pollution easily to have practiced. But you can do lots of cool things with light pollution too.

I would just go out and setup to do something then take a nap in the tent haha

Stars n tent by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr

other times I've stood outside for an hour freezing my ass off manually triggering the camera with a remote because I forgot the intervalmeter...

ImpromptU-Ah!-120.jpg by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr

And sometimes I hike to a place, setup, then walk away and wake up at 2 am to go get the camera.

The Lake by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr

haha its fun stuff. Just takes dedication really. Not THAT hard once you figure out the process and how your gear likes to work.

 

Man does it feel good to get back out! Went out to Slick Rock this past weekend with a buddy (John, @fj4tahoe on IG) for some quality camping and wheeling.


IMG_0405 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr

Should probably mention that I didn't tell John how to zoom in and out with my camera. All the shots of my truck are at 24mm. He did an awesome job thought!


IMG_0457 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_0477 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_0622 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_0703 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_0800 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_0808 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_0842 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_0875 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr

Got to hit the hard line on the last obstacle. Took a little bit of effort, and stacking a few rocks, to get up, but I got up and nothing broke!


IMG_0896 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_0903 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_0925 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr

Gave the nighttime photography another go. Still don't know what I'm doing, but I might as well start somewhere.


IMG_0981 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_0990 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


The next day we ran the trail with John's FJC. In total, took a little over an hour to run the trail. Turns out 40s just roller over everything.


IMG_1003 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1009 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1016 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1019 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr

Pretty stoked about this shot!


IMG_1021 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1026 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1033 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1044 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1049 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1057 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1060 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1062 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1073 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1079 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1085 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1086 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1089 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1114 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1120 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1129 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1152 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1162 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_1165 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr

Photo spam over! With that it time to give the truck a full once over, do some maintenance and get the old girl ready for the Rubicon!

 

Are you going to run the whole rubicon? That armor is gonna get a workout!

 

Hopefully. I'm not the one in charge of the Rubicon trip so I don't know the plans yet.

 

Sweet pics man! When is this Rubicon run you speak of???

 

Thanks!

Later this month, maybe next month. My dad will let me know when he and his friends figure it all out.

 

Awesome photos. So jealous of the west coast trails.

 

Awesome pictures!

 

I spy a fucken tree that loved the side of my truck..lol

 

Nice shots!

 

So it's been a while since I last updated this here build thread, so let's get caught up.

Back in mid-July, my brother and I took a trip up to Slick Rock and Deer Valley. Ran Slick Rock starting from the South end, things went fine. Deer Valley came around and 2 miles into the trail one of the 11 year old steering arms on the FJC decided that it has had enough. This made things really interesting with trying to my truck turned around and eventually back on the road to call my Dad to let him know what had happened.


IMG_20180711_232443 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr

A 1AM trail fix later, and we were able to baby the FJC off the trail and back to Bear Valley where we were able to have AAA tow it back home.

Fast forward to earlier this month, it was time to address some maintenance/repairs. New upper and lower balljoints on both sides and new CV axles as well. Drive side had a torn inner boot. I'll be rebooting it at a later date. The OEM passenger CV axles is now the spare that stays in the truck at all times.


IMG_20180805_135355 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr

Front end feels a bit firmer now, which is good. No more play.

And that's about it. Now on to the trip from this past weekend.

 

My dad wanted to head back to Deer Valley for redemption, so to Deer Valley it was. We started the trail from the South end and made it to the meadows before turning around. For starters, I didn't realize how hard this trail was. Even when my brother and I ran it about a month ago, I knew it was hard, but for some reason I got the bright idea to take EVERY hard line I could see. Truck made it up like a champ though. All of my armor definitely got a work out this trip.


IMG_2003 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2017 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2024 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2048 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2054 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2062 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2066 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2069 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2070 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2098 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2105 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2109 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2113 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2116 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2118 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2124 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2127 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2138 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2142 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2148 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2150 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2158 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2159 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2169 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2212 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2227 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2245 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2256 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2296 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2326 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2340 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2426 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2455 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2476 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2508 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2537 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2566 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2623 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2656 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2706 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2733 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2763 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2777 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2793 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2867 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2923 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr

After Deer Valley, we decided to go check out the new Lake Alpine entrance to Slick Rock. I'm pretty excited about the new entrance. The new obstacles make it super fun!


IMG_2962 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2973 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2981 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2987 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2993 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_2996 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_3006 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_3010 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_3012 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_3014 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_3024 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_3031 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr

The following sequence of photos is what I think its Slick Rock's new hardest obstacle. The camera is going to flatten it out, but I kid you not, it's a near 45* hill with a ton of loose rocks. I didn't give it a shot since I figured that I'd be winching very quickly. Going down is going to be the easy part, going up is going to be a real big challenge.


IMG_3036 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_3039 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_3041 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_3045 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_3048 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_3051 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_3057 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr


IMG_3059 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr

I'm definitely giving this obstacle a shot next season. Again, all the changes to Slick Rocks look like a ton of fun!