I haven’t shared the progress of Bertha the Clipping from Bellana’s Plant, Burt in a while.
Bertha is now 150 yards long and it has a new leaf that’s just about to open.
I exaggerate about the whole 150 yards long thing, but only a little. It’s going to be too long to stay in the dining room soon enough. Bertha is huge.
I did a little comparison experiment today. Just cause.
I took this picture of me gitter using my DSLR. I set the ISO as low as it goes, put the camera on my broken tripod (it doesn’t tilt) with the legs closed all the way because otherwise I would have had a picture of the wall above the top of me gitter. I then used the light meter on my iPhone to figure out the aperture and shutter speed, used the auto focus and snapped.
I then put Dad’s film camera on the tripod and did the same. The ISO of the film in the camera is 100, which is lower than the DSLR goes so it’s not an exact duplicate test. I did set the aperture the same on both cameras but the shutter speed was a smidge lower on the film version. I manually focused and compared the light meter in the camera to the app and they were very similar. I then snapped the pic. The shutter was open for one second but it felt like 15 years.
Someday I will get the roll of film developed and in theory I will compare the two images. I say in theory because I can pretty much guarantee I’ll forget all about this by then and will never compare them at all. Oh well. I have a photo for the photo a day thing though, so that’s good.
Inside, with the lights dimmed for optimum television viewing, from the other side of the room… manually focusing with one of Dad’s lenses is just difficult. Also, I am quickly going blind which makes it even more difficult.
The leaves in our backyard essentially rake themselves. If only the wind would blow them away from the house and into the woods instead of blowing them all right up against the house. Oh well.
There are still more leaves to come too. I don’t think I am going to have time to get to much of it this weekend, so they are going to be hanging out for a while. Ugh.
In other news, Candle.
I took this with my DSLR through Dad’s old zoom lens, Gemini 1:4.5 80-200mm. Aren’t they nice?
Manual focusing in a dark room is just as difficult as you would expect.
Hey look, the gold draw pulls on the Ikea cabinet in the kitchen are now black draw pulls.
There is one more change coming today that is a little more substantial, assuming my non-carpentry ass can pull it off. Here’s a before picture.
The after pic will be… ya know… after.
Changing the subject back to the Great Bond Movie Rewatch of 2022. I had some wrong information about Amazon Prime Video. I thought all of the Bond movies were available but going away on 11/5, which is today. I was wrong. There was one movie that apparently was not available for streaming. It was only available for rental or purchase. Fortunately it was Spectre, which is one of only two Bond movies that we have in our iTunes account. I’m actually watching it as I type this.
There was another incorrect piece of info. Apparently a few Bond movies did not go away when the calendar flipped to 11/5. I still see a few Daniel Craig movies available for streaming, including Die Another Day which is the only other movie I have left to watch. How cool is that? Unless things change today or tomorrow, I will be able to complete the Great Bond Movie Rewatch of 2022 without having to buy or rent any additional flicks. Sweet!
Changing the subject back to using Dad’s camera lenses with my DSLR. The two pictures above were taken with Dad’s 50mm prime lens. I have to get a handle on the whole depth of field thing when using a super fast lens. I thought the draw pulls were in focus though the one on the top is clearly out. There’s also the little thing with the pic being under exposed a bit thanks to me probably reading the light meter on my iPhone wrong.
The other picture was actually taken from the dining room. The focal length on this lens is 50mm, which was probably too narrow for what I wanted, but my Nikon D90 is a DX sensor, which means it’s not full frame, which means a full frame 50mm lens works like a 75mm lens (I think that’s the right number… the conversion is 1.5 times the lens’ focal length, right? 1.5 x 50 = 75) which is WAAAAY to narrow for my kitchen. Oh well. It’s still wicked fun.
Right then. Time to finish breakfast and then get to work in the kitchen. I don’t think today’s task will take long.
My lunch break opened with more manual-lens-on-a-DSLR fun. This time I used the lesser of Dad’s two Pentax K Mount lenses, his Gemini 1:4.5 80-200mm.
A couple of test shots of the cellar window desk-swag collection.
A couple of pics of the guitar nook (that are better than the crap from yesterday).
A couple of the Japanese Peace Lilly in the bedroom.
A few woods-behind-the-house pics.
Finally, yet another blurry background/bokeh pic of the bird feeders. I think I’ve taken 20 pics just like this. The zoom lens doesn’t have as wide an aperture as the prime lens I took outside yesterday, but it still makes some cool blurry dots of light.
Isn’t this fun?
The lens that came with Dad’s Pentax K1000 camera when he bought it back in the 80’s was a Pentax-M 1:2 50mm. Is it the best lens I have in the house right now? I think it might be. It’s the only non-zoom lens I have access too and it’s by far the biggest aperture. Do those things make it the best lens? I haven’t a clue.
After testing out the Pentax K to Nikon F mount adapter I bought from Amazon with my DSLR and Dad’s other lens, I dared to take the 50mm off of Dad’s camera and put it onto my D90. I took a few test pics in the cellar at the start of my lunch break. Then I went to the store to get a Powerball ticket (1.2 billion dollars? Okay), and then went to the back yard. I only took a few pics and I had to use the light meter in my iPhone, but here’s what I have.
This is the first pic and it looks okay, right?
This one is okay too. I was focusing on the Union Jack and the aperture was pretty wide so things off to the sides might be a little soft focused.
Scenes from a cart corral. This is through the car’s windshield and I had the ISO set wrong on the camera so it took a few tweaks on the lens settings to get a decently exposed shot.
After fixing the aperture and using a high f-stop, I got this. The focus is okay here, right?
Finally, I opened the aperture as wide as it could get and took this. Dig that crazy blurry background and all of those dots of light. That’s what they mean when they talk about bokeh, right? How much ass does that kick? The foreground focus is a little iffy because the wind picked up after I set the focus and moved the near bird feeder around which messed things up a little… but that background! Epic!
Now that I know I can put Dad’s lenses on my DSLR I will put one of my lenses back on because auto focus is my friend because my vision is crappy and gets worse by the day. It’s really cool to know I can do this though. I am pleased. Squee, babie.
Check it out, kids…
That’s my DSLR with one of Dad’s old manual lenses. It connects, the viewfinder sees through the lens. I can’t set the aperture in the camera like I do with my lenses, but I can set the camera to manual focus and set the aperture on the lens and still set the shutter speed in the camera. I can’t use the light meter, but I have one on my iPhone that seems pretty accurate.
Want to see if it works?
Oh yeah, it works!
I tried taking a second picture and came up with this turd…
I promise that this is out of focus because the shutter speed was slow and my hand shook a little, not because I did something wrong with the manual focus… though that would be a good guess based on how many of my film pics are out of focus.
Now I have to work up the courage to try using Dad’s 50mm prime lens. Woah, nelly!
Patches loves to sleep on bags of all shapes and sizes. Backpacks, shopping bags, tote bags? All of them. Jen said Patches was snoring like crazy just before I came into the room. I think I woke her up. Sorry, cat.
Inside the Red Head's Head 