The Marx Brothers Meet Abbott and Costello On Fantasy Island

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OK, last Saturday a local station went off the air due to an equipment failure and is still not back on 5+ days later. Our Satellite provider threw up a ‘don’t call us, we know about it’ message. Last night, after checking with several others, we found that the satellite feeds were kaput. So, we called the satellite provider on Tuesday. The story was it was being worked on. Wednesday we found that my sister, on the local cable connection was fine. On Wednesday evening the story from the satellite provider changed to – we have sent you several emails and snail mails regarding this- your contract is up and we are moving the locals to an HD upgrade package – so sorry-too bad. Needless to point out that we had never received an email or letter from them. Thursday (today) we found on the local channel’s website that it was a broadcast problem and that they had moved their signal to an HD sub channel of their sister channel. In the meantime we had called and set up for local cable for a year at 2/3 the price. Now we faced going through the change to cable – four TV feeds in the house through the walls to be replaced, etc. Add in the fact that Verizon is very close to adding TV to our existing FIOS connection. So, I asked my spouse to please cancel the cable cutover and I would set up an antenna to use with that converter box the government told us to get. Stay with me, I’ll get to the point soon. So, when she went to my Sister’s place to watch her soaps (the REAL reason all this was a problem – I’m happy once a week to watch SYFY on Tuesday night) I had a thought. I have a ham radio discone antenna already in place with about 25 feet of coiled excess from the preformed 100 foot silver/teflon feed line I used to connect to my rig on the second floor. I disconnected the feed, re-routed it through an access panel to the closet in the bedroom and hooked it with a triple adapter PL BNC F to the converter box. VOILA! There were the on air digital channels and sub channels. So, we are now able to watch the missing cannel on the sister channels weather sub channel and my scanners and ham rig are idle until Verizon gets FIOS TV to us.

We also DIRECTly found that the satellite provider’s customer service will lie through it’s teeth to make an upgrade sale.

The real reason for this post – we were told by a national radio/tv/phone outlet that where we are would require a directional yagi style antenna with a rotator to get the signals due to the almost 180 degree spread in location of the local transmit towers. Well, the discone is sucking them up just fine with a 100 foot feedline and lossy adapters.

Spring Is Here ! At Least Until Tomorrow …….

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We got a reprieve today. Last night the forecast was for 1-3 inches of snow and overcast for today. The snow did not fall and the Sun has been out all day. I took the time to take a few pictures with my Canon XTi with a Sears 50/1.4 M42 lens mounted with an adapter.

These were all taken at f1.4 to try out the small depth of field. I guess I am not going to have to spend money on a new EF Canon 50/1.4 lens. The Sears lens had been pushed into the back of a drawer after I compared it to my Canon EF 50/1.8 metal mount in relation to the additional brightness available. I just never considered using it seriously for actual photography. The DOF difference and the brightness have made me a believer, also it is nice to have a metal lens.

Anyone know the years of manufacture/sale for the Sears lens? Also, what company manufactured it ?

Catching Up

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NOTE POSTED 04-17-2009 – I have been trying to get a handle on the cross slit project since this was originally posted here. At this moment, and I don’t see my mind being changed, I am abandoning any further work or time. I believe that simply put, since there are two distinctly different focal lengths there will always be one plane that is stretched out of proportion. I am planning to continue into the world of old manual focus M42 lenses and even older lenses from folders on my Canon XTi. Of course, there will still be occasional side trips into pinhole land.

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I did receive the SD card I needed in order to test my digital stereo rig. As soon as there is a decent day I will be trying it out, along with some more shots with the homemade wood stereo camera and, of course, the newest toy – that double slit camera cap. The main problem for the rest of the year is the weather. With an annual snowfall of over 110″ per year combined with one of the lowest percentages of available sun received, the subject matter until Spring is mainly bare trees and snow. In fact, guess what was in the air just a half hour ago ? 

 

Double Slit Camera 4

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The super lens cap is finished, tested and a new page containing photographs has been created.

Double Slit Camera 3

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This morning I got what I needed together for this project. As I mentioned before, I have turned aside a bit from making a whole camera in order to determine something of the physical characteristics needed. This will be a lens cap on steroids, so to speak. I am using a set of macro rings as the basic structure, single edge injector razor blades for the slit edges, black core foam for the blade holders and information I have gleaned from the internet. If the findings are OK, I will then turn to making it in a 4×5 MF wooden camera with a Graflex roll film back using 6×7 negatives.

A few words here on the internet information – there are many references to slit cameras, however, most are related to either cameras used to determine finish line winners or the very interesting experiments on quantum physics showing how light travels as both waves and particles depending on whether they are being observed or not – real SG1 tech talk, huh ? Try this for a starting point – you will start wondering when the Asgard are going to beam you aboard – I hope you have on clean undies – LOL.   http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=usTOM8vffB4 or search the internet for>> Dr Quantum <<

 Further, the little related to what I am doing is mainly of the sort “I am going to make a double slit camera and I am all ready to make it, and it is going to be neat. Can anybody give me information on how to do it?”, or, “Here is a link to (pictures, information, guidelines, etc)”; a vast majority are either dead or not having anything related to the subject. The three places I did find that had needed information are enough to get going, I will either place the information or the links on my www.photographyhacks.org website after I actually determine if they are worthy.

So, here I am saying I am going to do it AND post pictures yadda, yadda, yadda ……….  Well, I do have good intentions of doing just that and you can determine if I follow through by checking back here for updates. Below is a quick picture of my worktable all set to start.

Double Slit Camera 2

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On the bus trip I did come up with a design concept for the camera project, then today I happened to spot a website that referred to a company that makes a double slit add on for MF cameras. I checked it out and it is a straight forward design very similar to a pinhole body cap. Taking this one step further, I changed direction a bit and now I am planning on building a double slit add on for my Canon XTi. This will be two-fold. First it will be quicker to assemble, second it will give me practice on the spacing of the slit widths.

It is wonderful to be retired ..

 
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 .. and have the opportunity to just stop what you were doing and strike off on a different path without asking permission.

 This morning I was digging around in the rear of a drawer full of parts for projects that were never completed/started/remembered, looking for a 58mm lens cap. I found two K*odak E*asyshare C340 5MP digital cameras. Both had the same problem (I got them at an auction website as for repair only), the little shutter over the lens did not open when the lens assembly extended during power up. I had thought to glue them open and use them as cheap point and shoot backups. One showed my failed attempt, the shutter was glued open OK, but the lens had a blob of the glue dead center. 

Since I had thought quite a bit during the wood stereo pinhole project about those two Olympus XA2 35mm cameras and their future conversion to a coupled stereo film pair setup; the jump to a pinhole digital stereo pair setup was very easy. The lens cap search was put on the back burner and an immediate trip to the workshop followed.

The matched pinholes are constructed and the flat black paint is now drying in the workshop. I will post a construction how-to on my website  >> http://photopgraphyhacks.org  << when it is complete and images will be placed here.  There is a clickable link in the BlogSpots widget to the right >>>>>>>>>>

Update: I just posted a small article on my website regarding making matching pinholes for either a stereo pinhole camera or matched pinhole cameras.