Peeps!

Yes it’s that time of year again…  And I already got my Peeps!

The difference here is that the ones I bought aren’t marshmallows, they’re “made with real chicken…”  Mostly because they ARE REAL CHICKENS!

 

And here they are.  Last Saturday I purchased a dozen Rhode Island Red chicks, and this is their progress after six days. 

I’d been wanting more chickens, and specifically Rhode Island Reds if possible.  When I went to Tractor Supply they actually had them as one of their featured breeds, so I bought them instead of the Golden Comet pullets in the next brooder over.  Of course this means that I have a few cockerels in this bunch, but any I get will serve their purpose (which by the way is NOT replacing my current rooster!)

This Golden Comet cock (rooster) isn’t due for replacement for at least another year, and possibly quite a bit longer, for three reasons.  First, he is still too young for his intended final purpose as coq-au-van.  Second, as you can see he is tame (at least with me) and the only bird I own that I have any sentimentality about…  And third (and likely foremost) this rooster fought a hawk, and won!  I didn’t actually watch it happen, but I’m pretty certain that he has chased off, and almost certainly fought, the neighborhood hawk at least twice.  If for no other reason that’s worth keeping him around!

 

Finally here’s one for posterity.  Little Mr. Curious looks right into my camera…  Or is it Miss Curious?  Still to early to be sure…

Photography: Fifty friggin’ Megapixels!

Unbelievable?  Maybe.  Impossible?  Not for 135 film! 

I just purchased and received a high-resolution flatbed scanner with a transparency unit, that allows it to scan both color negative and color reversal (slide) films.  Needless to say I am very impressed:  At the scanner’s native resolution of 6400 DPI a standard 135 frame (24x36mm) equates to 49.5 megapixels, with a quality level that blows the socks off of anything digital I’ve ever shot! 

So far I have tested this scanner with two color negative films (Fujicolor Superia 200 and 800 Xtra) and one color reversal film (Kodak Kodachrome 64) both with extraordinary results! 

Anyways here are some 50MP scans of some 135 photographs.  Enjoy.

 

Fujicolor Superia 800 Xtra scan

Kodak Kodachrome 64 scan

Fujicolor Superia 200 scan

Big Mid-December Update!

After talking about it for over a year now I finally got a proper chicken coop!  With the help of my parents I got a Suncast shed, which with my brother’s help I erected yesterday and completed today. 

Of course the chickens need a way of getting in and out of the coop, and here it is. 

 

 

 

 

 

Now the only problem is convincing the chickens that they should be INSIDE that building!  Hopefully the heat lamp I placed inside, as well as moving their feeder and water bucket in there helps…

And now for some “Frozen Chicken…”  In other words at the time of this writing my chickens STILL haven’t realized that the new, heated building that houses their food and water supply is a good place to be…

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 In Other News…

Also today I finsihed off my “bonus” roll of Kodachrome 64.  Hopefully I’ll be mailing off both rolls this Tuesday, as I sent a question to Dwane’s Photo to see if I could get my empty rolls back (I want them for use as display pieces). 

That’s all I have for now…  So until the next update…

Sunflower harvest, speedlight guts and more…

I realize that I’ve been awhile in posting, and that most of my more recent posts have been strictly about photography.  The first is just plain laziness, and the second I have taken care of by adding a Flickr photostream to my sidebar. 

First:  the Fall of the Sunflowers

It’s been over a month and a half now, but my sunflowers finally ripened and I cut the heads down.  Here is a photo taken just before the harvest.

 

One of the astonishingly-large heads that we harvested!  Most weren’t quite this big, but…

 

 

 

Just to give you an idea, this is about HALF of the harvest!  All in all it equated to about a half-bushel of seeds.  I’m rather impressed, especially since only about half of the plants actually made it to harvest!

 

Of course most of my corn is still in the field (I need to deal with this), most of what isn’t has already been fed to the chickens. 

 

And just one more quick thing…  Have any of you ever wondered what was inside a speedlight (standard camera flash)?  I had purchased a Sunpak Auto 411 Thyristor (a fairly powerful late 70s flash) off eBay.  When I got it the thing didn’t work.  So I tore it apart to see if I could find the problem.  So far no luck, but luckily for you I photographed the innards for all to see…

Click the picture to see a larger, annotated version on Flickr. 

Hopefully I can get this sucker working; it’s fairly small but when it does work it packs a surprising punch! 

 

 

 

Well that’s all I have for now.  Hopefully I won’t go so long without a post again…

Film Photography

Yes, it’s a horrible pun but I couldn’t resist.  However this still-life is not what this post is about…

Yesterday I finally got back my test roll, and I am very pleased with the results.  My $2 Nikon performs like a champ!  Aside from the one picture that the lab screwed up, and the two that they (understandably) didn’t print the rest came out beautifully…

Sadly the same can’t be said for the photo CD that came with my enlargements.  The main problem is the resolution; the images I got are 1.6 megapixels (remember that a 35mm film camera is essentially a 10-20 megapixel camera, depending on what film you use) and the colors are screwed up (I knew I took a picture of a 24-bit palette for a reason!)  Oh well.  If I ever shoot any more film after my Kodachrome I’ll be sending it to a professional photo lab that provides “professional” photo CDs, not just the local “lab.”

Below is a somewhat hastily reconstructed picture of a sunset taken with my Nikon 5005 from the p**s poor scans on the Photo CD.  The film is Fujicolor ASA 200, camera is using programmed Auto-Exposure.  This picture looks “close” to both what I actually saw and what the actual enlargement looks like.  I will be scanning a selection of my enlargements and posting them on my online photo gallery soon.

 

Photography: Kodachrome!

You give us those nice bright
colors,

You give us the greens of
summers, 

Makes you think all the
world's a sunny day, 

Oh yeah!

Oops, sorry about that…  I just got so caught up in
the mystique of this legendary film and the old song
that I couldn’t resist!  

In case any of you didn’t know, sadly Kodachrome is
a dead product and is no longer in production.  When
I found out about that sad fact I decided that I had
to get a hold of and shoot a single roll of it, as
I will never have another chance in my life!  

Well today it arrived, along with a selection of
color correction gels (one of which I used in the
taking of the above photo).  I am rather anxious to
load and start shooting this film, as I have a
deadline (as of 12/31/10 it will be IMPOSSIBLE to
get Kodachrome film processed anywhere in the world!)
But first I want to wait for my test roll to be
developed just to make sure my $2 Nikon won’t destroy
this rare film!!!

(The above picture is taken from a test of a still-
life I am titling “The Past and Present of Film.”
The Olympus camera on the left is a stand-in for an
older 35mm.  Obviously I will be taking the final
picture before I load and shoot my first and last
roll of Kodachrome!)

Yet more photography…

Yesterday I finally finished exposing my “test roll” of film, and took it to the pharmacy today to get it developed (the film that is, NOT the camera!)  Provided this test proves that the Nikon is in good, solid working condition (despite likely having been dropped, as well as my own attempt to destroy the shutter…) I have one more thing I want to do with it before it goes into cold storage, but I will save that for another post…

Despite the extremely low purchase price ($2) I sincerely hope it’s a good camera, as even though it’s effectively 75 cents a frame to use it is also effectively a 20 megapixel camera!  With a massive list of accessory lenses available should I wish to aquire them.

Aside from having nearly completed my Nikon test I also did some timed exposure experiments with my Lumix.  My first experiment turned out beautifully (pic and link to full resolution picture is at the end of the post), however afterwards things didn’t go so well…

I decided to try capturing both the stars and a tree in one frame, using my strobe to illuminate the tree.  I removed my slave unit from the strobe so I wouldn’t lose it, but not it’s mounting…  Just as I was ready to take the picture the strobe suddenly started going off like the Fourth of July!!!  Turns out that my home-improvised slave mount finally failed, and after removing it the strobe functioned properly again in “open flash” mode.  Sadly the picture I had composed turned out horribly…  Still though, with all the random and very rapid flashing it must’ve looked like Beirut in my front yard!!!

Here is a pic of my one “good” timed exposure (the astronomical ones sadly didn’t turn out…  The Earth rotates more in one minute than you’d think).  The reddish streaks are traffic (this frame was exposed over a period of 60 seconds).  The full resolution image may be viewed here.