Saturday, April 23, 2011

Uraling to Kiowa

A windy and overcast day, mostly, for us here in the Denver Metro area.  Once chores were done and things were quiet at the house, I went out riding on Natasha, my Ural Sidecar Rig as she's not been ridden in over a week!

I motored east out of the suburbs bordered by the Southlands Mall, soon making my way down the dirt road bordering the Blackstone Country Club and Golf Course.

Today I was going to shoot pictures not only with my Panasonic Lumix Camera but also with the built-in 5 Megapixel camera in my company-issued Droid Smartphone.  I wanted to see/compare the qualities involved.

 Droid

Panasonic Lumix

 Droid

 Panasonic Lumix

I left this area and motored in a southeasterly direction, tracking on dirt county roads and just letting my mind wander and my eyes gaze at the absolute lack of people.  Just the occasional ranch house, some horses grazing in the fields and the ever present gusty winds.

I found pavement again, after several county roads, and headed East on CO86.  I spotted what appeared to be a used car dealership on the right as I rode, and with Gary France's recent posting in mind, my eyes zeroed in on what appeared to be a Pierce Arrow!

First though, I had to head into the town of Kiowa to refuel.  That task accomplished, I continued East just a bit more to pose Natasha near the town's water tower.

No Droid Camera version here, Natasha appeared to be a dark blob in the pictures I took using the phone.

Now heading back West, I transited back through the small town of Kiowa, under the watchful eyes of the local police car.  You have to make sure you obey the speed limits in these small towns, unless you want to make an offering to the town coffers through a "performance award".

So, about halfway between Kiowa and the town of Elizabeth.  There is located a small establishment called A1 Specialty Sales.  It was this row of cars along the side of CO86 that had first attracted my eye and with the owner's permission, I posed Natasha along the front car row.


From this point on, the pictures were all taken by the Droid Camera except where noted.  My Lumix camera battery indicator was flashing red at me and I saved its remaining charge for just a few photos.

 This fire truck was actually not part of the first row but I thought it interesting enough to pose
Natasha by it.  It's a 1971 Ward La France Fireball.

 Not a bad looking color for this old time Chevy, no info on the site about it, sorry.

 I'd never heard of a Kelmark GT Kit Car, it's a 1978 and apparently quite sporty

 I remember as a kid, watching Herbie win races on the Sunday night showings of the Disney Show
This one is a 1971 Super Beetle.

 According to their website, this is a 1936 Chevy Two Door Coupe Street Rod.
I liked its curving fenders.


Now we come to the car which had drawn my eye, it's headlights seemingly sprouting out of the front fenders, much like the Pierce Arrow that Gary France admired so much in his posting.

1988 Tiffany, hand-built by Classic Motor Carriages of Miami, FL
Apparently a replica of similar cars built back in 1941. 
These first two pictures were taken using the Droid Camera, I would end up tilting back
up the right side fog lamp for the Lumix Camera's turn 


 Here's the Panasonic Lumix's rendition of the Tiffany motorcar

The sellers claims its one of only 600 made!  Who's got a spare $29,500?  Gary?

Not quite up to the standards set by the Pierce Arrow of course, but still quite the entrance once would make into the Country Club with something like this eh?

I returned home via the usual county roads, the sun had come out by then and it felt almost warm as I enjoyed the wooded and rolling hills scenery.  Natasha got a small workout, about three hours of riding with perhaps 50 miles covered.  I hope you liked the pictures, what did you think of the Droid vs the Panasonic?

I don't think I'll be using the Droid as the main camera any time soon, but it came in handy today when I set off without a fully charged digital camera!

10 comments:

GF said...

Some very nice and interesting cars there. I loved Herbie, I remember the movie very well, I was amazed at how a car could split in half and still go... :-)
Stick to the Lumix, the phones are okay when you don't have a camera handy but that's it. When you enlarge the pictures you can really see the compression artifacts on the phone picture, ugly, the Lumix is much cleaner.

Steve Williams said...

The Lumix definitely produces cleaner files with less artifacts. I bet the phone is doing some processing that's introducing those issues. You can probably find an app for the phone that will work around that.

Nice ride. And I loved Herbie too!

Steve Williams
Scooter in the Sticks
Follow me on Twitter

RichardM said...

Yep, the Droid is fine if that's all you have or, as illustrated in this post, if the battery is dead in the camera.

I remember the Kelmark GT, it is built on a VW Beetle floorpan but the body is significantly lighter so they were pretty fast.

There was also a Classic Motor Carriages in Pasadena on Colorado Blvd. I think that they were built on a Lincoln Continental Mark IV chassis and driveline.

Richard

Roger said...

Neat pics I like the Tiffiany the best looks cool to me.

Oz said...

I don't know if my comment is needed or not but, the Lumix is better. Great photos of the cars.

Jack Riepe said...

Dear Charlie6 (Dom):

I like old firengines almost as much as I ike old trains. But I was a junior in high school in 1971, so that one doesn't realy qualify. It is odd to see you taking pictures of cages, even if they are really cool cages.

I still admire the wide open spaces out there, like around the water tower.

Happy belated Easter.

Fondest regards,
Jack • reep • Toad
Twisted Roads

Chris said...

Which droid did you get? I have a droidx it works in a pinch, but isn't as good as a real camera with a bigger lens. My fave feature is to be able to take the photo and upload immediately to flickr/twitter. handy.

Good you got the Ural out. Mine has been down for a month now. :(

irondad said...

Don't you miss the days when autos all had character? Most look so alike these days.

At least we are still characters er... I mean HAVE character!

redlegsrides said...

GeorgeF, thanks for commenting and reading.

Thanks Steve for commenting, am leaning now towards using the Nikon D500, then in a pinch the Lumix, even though the Nikon has less Megapixels....but much better lens.

RichardM, thanks for the info re the Kelmark...and the CA version of CMC.

Raftn, the tiffany's got one heck of a front end doesn't it?

Thanks Motoroz for reading and commenting.

Thanks Jack, I'll see what I can do about finding older fire engines...must work in the RR museum in Golden one of these weekends as well.

Chris, it's a droid 2 global.

Anonymous said...

Nice pictures. Like the rest I can see the finer detail in the Panasonic. Currently, I'm taking pictures on my trips with my smartphone. One less thing to keep track of is nice. However if I was going someplace extra special then I would break out the camera.