Photography: Art Photo #1

After viewing my American flag against the sunset I knew I wanted to take a picture of it in that setting.  I finally did so today, not only for the pleasure of doing so but to gain experiance in multi-flash photography (albeit with my Kodak pocket camera, I just purchased a high-end Panasonic “bridge” camera, and plan on re-taking this picture with it as a test if nothing else).  And here is the result:

This picture was taken kneeling before the flag, looking upwards at it with my Sunpak flash set about six feet to the side at 1/16 power at about a 45-degree angle to the right of the camera.  I am very impressed with the way I was able to both highlight the flag while at the same time giving it depth against the sunset-lit clouds. 

Photography: MacGuyver to the Rescue!

On Friday I finally received my Wein Peanut PND optical slave from Midwest Photo Exchange, and not completely to my surprise it did not fit in my strobe’s sync socket…  It turns out that SunPak strobes take an almost-standard 3/32 monoplug (which is several thousandths longer than a standard monoplug).  After purchasing a monoplug and finding out it didn’t work I tried manually tripping the flash by simply jamming a nail into the sync socket…  When the flash tripped I realized that the monoplug is simply too short.  My short-term solution:  Wrap most of the nail with label stock, and use two wires to connect the optical slave to the nail and the sync port’s sleeve.

It’s ugly, unstable and all-together sloppy, but it does work!  It reliably trips the strobe on my camera’s “main” flash, ignoring the preflash every time.  As I expected using an off-camera slave flash does improve the quality of my photos.  For demonstration purposes I decided to do some model photography.  Since I don’t have access to a proper model I decided to use my cat; Chessie.

Here is a picture of Chessie using only my camera’s internal (and very weak) flash. 

 

 

 

And a picture of Chessie using both the internal flash as a direct flash and the SunPak 522 Auto as a slave flash, bounced off the ceiling at 1/16 power.  This dual-flash picture is definately sharper, but I get the impression that my exposure compensation may be off…  After all I am only an amateur, and one inexperianced in multi-flash photograpry at that!  I will try to take more pictures tommorow, and both learn from my (inevitable) mistakes and post my best pictures then.  So until then…

Photography: Professional flash gun!

Earlier this week on one of my frequent visits to the local Goodwill I found this little gem: A Sunpak 522 Auto Thyristor professional photostrobe. It only cost me $5, and I figured if nothing else it'd be something fun to play with. After doing some research I determined that this was in fact a professional strobe (which I had guessed simply by the number of controls when I first saw it), and a rather a powerful one for one that can run on standard batteries!
This strobe came with a camera shelf, which if I ever use it for it's intended purpose I will most likely NOT use; as with any digital camera I can afford I will have to use it as a slave flash I would want to mount it to it's own tripod.









An alternate view of the strobe, showing both it's back panel and it's 3-dimensional aiming.

Of course I decided to try to test this strobe with my "pocket" camera by simply trying to manually synchronize the strobe with the camera's built-in flash, and actually succeeded!




















Here is a photo using the Sunpak 522 Auto at maximum power in a quote-unquote "Open Flash" shot (meaning that I managed to manually trigger the flash gun whilst the camera was actually sampling the image). The field plants are at least one hundred feet away from the camera (which has a 3/8 inch objective).For $5 I am rather impressed...

Stereo (rack) Envy... Resolved.

After spending the morning after Church at my parents' house, while waiting for the local Goodwill to open (which, incidentally, is the place I purchased my receiver) I got to looking at my dad's stereo racks. Finally I got fed up with my lazy set-up (with the receiver, EQ and Phase Coupled Activator, simply stacked on one of my speakers)...
Today I purchased a cheap ($15) "bookshelf" to use as a new stereo rack, and finally arranged my stereo components, Media Center PC and one of my game consoles in a far more logical and elegant way.
Here is a picture of my new setup featuring (from top to bottom) my Media Center PC, my Optimus (RadioShack) Equalizer, a Phase Coupled Activator, my Pioneer 5.1 Ch Receiver, and my Xbox 360, between my television and one of my pair of Rectilinear speakers (with the cover purposefully removed to show the 6-way driver system) given to me by my father as a housewarming gift (and one I appreciate on a near daily basis). These were my father's college speakers; and as he and his roommate were the "stereo guys" in their dorm in college needless to say these are EXTREMELY good speakers! Given a clean input they sound as good at low volumes as they do at "permanant hearing damage" levels! Though the setup works exactly the same as it did before it is now much more accessable than it was, and definately looks better. I feel it was worth the time spent.

Antique Radio

This last Thursday as part of my vacation I went up to Ann Arbor with my brother and one of our mutual friends. While wandering the town we stopped by a hole-in-the-wall antique store, where I found this gem...
This is a General Electric model 410 tabletop radio in very good condition (as you can see even the cloth speaker guard is intact!) After doing a little research I determined that this radio is about 59 years old. It was sold as working, and work it does with only one slight flaw, there is very little in the way of music on the MW (commonly called AM) band!!!
I had been looking for a low-cost, working or repairable vacuum tube radio for some time, and when I saw this unit marked "Works! $35" I decided to buy it. As I said the only problem is the overall lack of music on the MW band; though the dial is slightly off the reception quality and selectivity is better than some much newer transistor radios. The sound quality is good; with no undesirable distortion . Now all I need is a zero-range AM transmitter so I can supply my own music...

Home Ag: Sunflowers

In addition to field corn I also planted about 120 sunflowers, which I have neglected to post pictures of until now. Sadly they are well past the "pretty" phase, but that's not why I'm growing them...
These plants are all over 10 feet tall, with most having a head measuring over a foot across. Fortunately they are "droopy," which deters wild birds from stealing my crop.








And here's a picture with me holding a soda can next to one of the lowest heads... Yes they really are that big!
I believe that I lost maybe a fifth of these plants to rabbits that ran under the electric fence, however there are still PLENTY of flowers left over!

Home Ag Update: Knee high by the Fourth of July... YEAH RIGHT!!!

As you can see from my two test plants, I am WAY past the old adage! Mind you my test plants (I call them that because I planted them to test the "Round-Up Readiness" of the rest of my seed) are a week ahead of my plot, but...


















These plants are even taller than the test plants. The tallest of them are already over my head (I'm just shy of 6')! I've only applied nitrogen once since I planted them, and you can see the results.













And the other half of my garden; comprised of four tomatoes, and crop plantings of sweet corn and sunflowers. It isn't doing nearly as well as the field corn, as the weeds have taken over.













And a shot of my entire operation. Enjoy.