Random Photos

[phinds]

Wow, that is just amazing. I had never heard about those cameras.

Youngster. Anyone who lived through the Cold War would know about those famous "Spy Cameras".

 

[morrobay]

That soup dish looks amazing! Chilli, Paprika??

 

[pinball1970]

View attachment 359861

Ill give you review!

 

[jtbell]

On the Catawba River just north of Rock Hill, South Carolina yesterday:

A few miles downstream is the Catawba reservation, which I visited a couple of years ago.

More about the history of Nation Ford.

A road running southward from central Charlotte still has the name Nations Ford Road, although it no longer reaches the ford itself. The original road south of Charlotte through Fort Mill to the river has been abandoned and built over, except for a few sections of the roadbed in a park/greenway just north of Fort Mill.

A Google search for "Nation Ford" turns up mostly stuff about Nation Ford High School in Fort Mill.

 

[nsaspook]

A ZIP-tie gun.

 

[Tom.G]

I have one of those -- well worth the investment.

TIP: Using a permanent felt-tip pen, add marks on the tension scale for the different sizes of ties. Label them with the length of the tie.

Cheers,
Tom

 

[Flyboy]

A very… distinctive… bike on the Iowa State University campus.

 

[pinball1970]

A nice one again from Katie my colleague.

 

[pinball1970]

 

[pinball1970]

Guitar modding continued...



My custom surf/dream pop guitar is now assembled, and it's nicknamed "Surfbird".
Here it is:

View attachment 357202

I still need to do neck adjustment, adjust string heights and then do intonation, and after that the guitar should be ready to go.

Schematics is highly recommended to do when you build custom guitars:

View attachment 357203

Some close-ups:

View attachment 357204
Left: Roller string retainers on headstock (decreases friction and helps with holding tune while bending
& using the guitar vibrato arm). Right: Lockable tuners. Bottom: Bridge roller saddles (decreases friction and
helps with the same as the roller string retainers).

View attachment 357205
Left: The three pickups (two Rockabilly single coils (GFS Surf 90) and one lipstick pickup); five pickup combinations are possible with my wiring. Right: The volume and tone controls with two top hat bell knobs, otherwise usually seen on Gibson guitars.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm having fun, so I will probably do another custom guitar...

I'm planning on doing a Telecaster-style guitar, since I haven't got one of those, but it will likely become a little "bastard" that doesn't look like a standard Telecaster; it will be a "Weirdocaster" .

I'm thinking of fitting two Telecaster pickups into a Stratocaster body, along with a couple
of dual hot rail pickups. This will make it into a Telecaster which also has a vibrato system (standard
Telecasters haven't got any), and the extra dual hot rail pickups will make it possible for it
to double as a Stratocaster. So it will become sort of a lovebaby of a Tele and a Strat. The wiring will probably be quite tricky to do, but no pain, no gain.

View attachment 357207
Left: I've got an empty Stratocaster body and a neck, but unfortunately I will have to drill/carve out more space for the pickups. Top: Two Telecaster pickups (neck & bridge) I've got lying around. Bottom: I will have to do a custom pickguard, since my pickup combination will be very unusual.

A little extra guitar nerdiness, if I may...

Telecaster bodies are rather heavy (except Telecaster Thinlines) and not as comfortable as Stratocasters in my opinion, for instance Stratocasters have belly cuts (image) while Telecasters are usually completely flat (image). And I'm keen on comfortability and ergonomics, so I prefer Stratocaster bodies.

There are good reasons why Stratocasters are such extremely popular guitars, and it's not because Jimi Hendrix played one .

View attachment 357206

They may not be very sexy guitars, but the design is simply great; they are very comfortable and ergonomic, they are versatile and they usually sound from good to great. And if I'm not mistaken there are two Stratocasters on stage on the first photo @pinball1970 posted before, in front of what I guess is a Marshall cabinet and amp (?).

I've only played one guitar that I have found more comfortable than Stratocasters, and it's a PRS copy (a Harley Benton CST-24T) I bought cheap second hand which is incredibly comfortable. It's not a great guitar, but pretty good, and fun to play.

Yes all Marshall

 

[nsaspook]

The morning drive back home after dropping the kid off for classes at the University in Portland.

Urban farm.

Wonderful morning.

Those river houses look nice but it's cold on the river.

 

[DennisN]

More Helios magic shot today...

Believe it or not, but these are pretty much straight out of camera (just minor edits done)...
The vivid colors are thanks to (1) the subject, (2) good sunlight, (3) CPL filter and
(4) the strangeness of a modded Helios 44 lens...

Lens: Helios 44M7 with reversed front element + CPL filter
Edit: Just some added contrast in Photoshop

Lens: Helios 44M7 with reversed front element + CPL filter
Edit: Some gamma correction done in Photoshop


And also... a cat head:

Lens: Meyer Optik Lydith 30mm f/3.5

 

[jtbell]

First photo with my new iPhone 16 Pro, looking out the window into my back yard.

Definitely a step up from my iPhone XR, which will drop off Apple's iOS upgrade list this fall. 24MP instead of 12MP, and a zoom lens that goes from 12mm (0.5x) to 120mm (5x), instead of a fixed 28mm. This photo used the 24mm (1x) setting, with some cropping before posting. Then of course the forum software resized it.

 

[jtbell]

While out walking, I tried the 5x zoom setting. Didn't see any cats, so I had to make do with these.

 

[symbolipoint]

Fence lizard, afternoon time, camera on android smartphone. No treatments other than the second image done was magnification on the camera app.

I still fail to make my adjustment actions properly rotate the magnified photograph.

 

[symbolipoint]

Did not work right when posting. I'll try to rotate that bigger one and repost if possible.
Looking at the image just on computer, should not need any rotating....
View attachment 360077
That's still wrong.

 

[symbolipoint]

Rotation was done through Photos application on the mobile device, so hopes this looks proper. I may go back to previous post to remove the image.
Still wrong. Still WRONG!
I have no option here to remo,,........... I am removing the image.

 

[symbolipoint]

A repost of upright image, magnified when recording. Hoping it is upright.

NoGood. I do not understand why.

 

[morrobay]

I took screenshot, crop rotate in photos on oppo phone. Voila

 

[symbolipoint]

morrobay
I do not know where my other post went, in which I had that one you show in #2769, with the correct orientation. Maybe moderator removed it.

 

[jack action]

NoGood. I do not understand why.

You can rotate an image in two ways:

1. By actually rotating the image;
2. By inserting a "command" in the EXIF data to rotate the image when on display.

In the latter, some programs don't read those commands in the EXIF data, thus they don't rotate the image.

For example, I use your image and open it in one of my "image viewer" programs that I know rotates it with EXIF data when asked, and I overwrote the now "rotated" image. (Note that I converted your image to JPG because my "simple" program doesn't deal with WebP images.)

Then I open the image with a more complex program - GIMP - and it showed me this menu before opening it:

Now I have the choice of which version I want to open. If I choose "Rotate", it will actually rotate it. If I overwrite the image with the now "truly" rotated image, it will show as upright in every program (including the ones used by PF).

 

[DennisN]

Four shots of bees that turned out nicely, I think...
...shot three years ago but not edited until now (I'd actually forgotten about them )...

Nectar thieving...

Nice details on the wings...

Another sucker...

And one captured in flight, showing us the behind...

Lens used: Sony 55-210mm (with autofocus and image stabilization)

 

[jtbell]

Rotation was done through Photos application on the mobile device, so hopes this looks proper. I may go back to previous post to remove the image.
Still wrong. Still WRONG!

This prompted me to try rotating an image in the iOS Photos app, on an iPad. I started by duplicating an image, then cropping both of them approximately the same way, then rotating one of them using the 90-degree rotation icon (square with an arrow around one corner), not the free-rotation tool which lets you do an arbitrary angle.

Unrotated:

Rotated:

The Photos app on my iPhone seems to have the same options, but I prefer to use my iPad for photo processing because its screen is larger, making it easier to drag the crop boundaries where I want them.

For what it's worth, the iPhone camera produces HEIF images, and the Photos app stores them that way. When I transfer them to my iMac, they show up as .HEIC files which I can open in Photoshop. When I upload them to the forum using the "Attach files" button, they show up as .jpeg files, rescaled to maximum 800 pixels wide and 620 pixels high if they exceeded those dimensions to start with.

 

[jtbell]

 

[berkeman]

We have some flowering trees in our new back yard, and it's pretty artistic the way they shed their petals...

 

[nsaspook]

The morning walk at the boat launch.

 

[symbolipoint]

Left when I came around the other side for a different viewpoint but once done, something else was in view.

 

[nsaspook]

Another park walk at Blue Lake in Fairview, Oregon.

Lunch.

 

[DennisN]

Ok, I catched a bit of the antique bug and bought two old cameras on auction [...]
[...] I will put up photos of them here later, of course .

Old camera 1/2:

Voigtländer Brilliant

Year: 1936 (dated with help of the serial number)
Model: first metal body model (later models were made of bakelite)
Type: Medium format pseudo-twin lens reflex camera (TLR)
Shutter times: Just three to choose from (1/25s, 1/50s and B (bulb mode))
Apertures: Just three to choose from (f/7.7, f/11 and f/22)


Here it is. It looks a bit like a small lantern, but no, this is a camera.
It's pretty small and cute (dimensions: 11 cm (height), 7 cm (width), 7 cm (depth)).

The left top lever controls the shutter; you pull it downwards to take a photo. It still works .
The left bottom wheel sets the shutter time. It still works.
The right bottom lever sets the aperture. It also still works.

And you focus by turning the small ring around the lens. And you have to a guesstimate
when focusing (that's what the texts "Landscapes", "Groups" and "Portraits" are there to help with;
the viewfinder will not show how it looks through the lens, the viewfinder just shows a static view
(see down below).

Look, there's a small photo counter on one side of the camera. It's not digital :

And to help with framing the photo you open the top to access the viewfinder.
When framing the shot, you look straight down with your eyes at ca 30 cm from the viewfinder.
If you look any closer you will not see a view in focus.
The viewfinder sees through the top lens on the front via a 45˚ mirror.

And here's the viewfinder. Not digital, but a pretty bright and nice analog preview
of a small fan on my table. It looks like the viewfinder needs a bit of cleaning, though .

And inside the viewfinder box the serial number can be found.
H586461 means the camera was manufactured in 1936 (according to this page).

I'm not sure exactly how it works to load film, but I think you have to open both the bottom and the back to load the film:

And inside the camera, is there perhaps a digital sensor somewhere?

Nope, no digital sensor here .

We shouldn't expect very much, this little thing has been through a lot.
It's 89 years old, and judging from my testing I think it still works.
That's pretty impressive.

I'm thinking about putting in some LEDs in it and turn it into a small lamp for fun,
positioning the LEDs so light shines out through the two lenses (the main lens and the viewfinder lens).

 

[Flyboy]

Mr. Toad! You have awoken from your winter slumber!

Prepare to be pet and booped and held a great deal, Mr. Toad. My girlfriend finds you adorable.

 

[nsaspook]

FTA LNB(s) HV and circular polarization (slight offset from center) on the focus of a 1.2M reflector dish.

 

[phinds]

Don't you even THINK about messing with my fries (grandson, photo by son)

 

[morrobay]

Party update for sacrificing tomorrow. BTW go go dancing is still on in Thailand. To Fingertips pt 2.

 

[nsaspook]

That looks great.

My nearly 50 YO SE Asia party cap.

We spent a few weeks off the coast and in Pattaya after a port visit at the Naval base in Philippines. At the time, we rescued a few loads of boat people on the high seas and sent them to the UN refuge camp in Thailand.

We had to anchor out and take a small boat to the beach.

 

[berkeman]

Don't you even THINK about messing with my fries (grandson, photo by son)

What do you suppose that is to the left of the fries? I'm not recognizing it/them...

 

[morrobay]

That looks great.

My nearly 50 YO SE Asia party cap.
View attachment 360279
We spent a few weeks off the coast and in Pattaya after a port visit at the Naval base in Philippines. At the time, we rescued a few loads of boat people on the high seas and sent them to the UN refuge camp in Thailand.
View attachment 360280
View attachment 360281
We had to anchor out and take a small boat to the beach.

Does this look familiar. Subic Bay, Phillpenes

 

[phinds]

What do you suppose that is to the left of the fries? I'm not recognizing it/them...

It could be mashed up hamburger, but I'm just guessing.

 

[jtbell]

Don't you even THINK about messing with my fries (grandson, photo by son)
View attachment 360271

That other stuff, on the other hand, whatever it is...

 

[nsaspook]

Does this look familiar. Subic Bay, Phillpenes View attachment 360284

I was a field engineer working at the base in the 80's.

 

[DennisN]

Springtime... sunshine... lovely day... time for some macro fun...

First up we've got arrowwood:

...and here are Angel's Tears daffodils:

...and a strikingly yellow dandelion:

...and further down on the ground I found a cute little ladybird taking a stroll:

And last, we've got a colorful bishop's hat:

(Photo 1-4 taken with Vivitar 90mm f/2.5 Macro which is a very good and rather fast macro lens)
(Photo 5 taken with Chinon 50mm f/1.7 Macro which is a pretty remarkable lens I happened to find by chance; it is a very small, very fast macro lens (reproduction 1:3) that focuses as close as 27 cm, and it is quite rare.
I've only seen one ever - the one I've now got at home .)

 

[jtbell]

We hadn't seen this guy on our front step for a while.

Looks like he's put on even more weight!

 

[DennisN]

Some shots taken today...

Flowering cherry tree #1:

Flowering cherry tree #2:

Flowering bush (or small tree, I don't remember ):

(taken with Jupiter-37AM 135mm f/3.5)

 

[DennisN]

It looks like some crazy person has been out in the sun testing a lot of lenses...
...oh, wait... that must have been me.

A whole bunch of 50mm lenses were tested to see which actually are my favorites of all 50mm lenses I've got (and it's too many , so I'm gonna sell those I don't use).

 

[pinball1970]

Some nice clouds. We have had some fires on the moors, nowhere near as bad as you get in Oz, Greece, US but they do happen and can smoulder for a while and flare up again.
A few people have been asking if it will affect the sky, clouds.

 

[DennisN]

Some nice clouds.

Is that a small slice of the moon I see in the upper center of photo #3, perhaps?

 

[jrmichler]

My favorite cloud photo. I was visiting friends, and those clouds looked a lot more impressive in person than in the photo.

 

[pinball1970]

Is that a small slice of the moon I see in the upper center of photo #3, perhaps?

Yeah when I looked up it was so precise and large against the sky. I made sure it was in there against all the pretty, cloudy, coloured, texture. This will make a lovely shot. I saw the image and it was tiny! It absolutely did not look like that right here, above me, with my eyes!
My camera lies!

 

[pinball1970]

A

My favorite cloud photo. I was visiting friends, and those clouds looked a lot more impressive in person than in the photo.
View attachment 360613

Holy cow, that makes my cloud images look like Katy Perry, yours are Neil Armstrong.

 

[nsaspook]

Race day at the local bar and OTB.

 

[morrobay]

Seafood soup, seafood salad, fried rice with shrimp. $16.