Cause of Broken Zoom

———————— (Photo above, Right — Note a clack in the white nylon gear )

Yet again, this is about the same broken Sigma Zoom Lens.

While examining the mechanism, electronics, I’ve been puzzling why

this lens was not working.   It seems everything are functioning. —– ? ? ?

—– Then I noticed, when the AF motor was connected to the battery

and rotating, focus mechanism only moves a little.  In both direction,

gears rotates only short time even though the motor was kept running.  

—– On the end, I discovered,  a gear connected to the motor has a clack, 

so, it’s loose from the shaft and slipping.

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In theory, it is easy to replace the gear like this, which is not expensive.  

BUT in practice, in order to access this part of the mechanism, the whole

lens has to be disassembled. —– Considering the time and the expertise,

just  change a small gear which cost (to the Sigma) may not be more than 50P,

still the service charge would be more than £100.  

= good second-hand would be even cheaper. 

[]

In my life, I rarely paid a service charge to the camera company.

 1) I don’t brake a camera.   2) If it started malfunctioning, I repair myself.  

3) If it was beyond repair, I disassemble and use it for experiment. (and have a fun !)  

4) Being as a technical writer, the service engineers are my good friend and to keep

cosy relation, camera company wouldn’t charge us.  (often, broken camera is a bad

news which the company want to keep it  in secret.  

And our feed-back is indispensable for them. )

[]

In principal, the Gear shouldn’t break, still, as I saw the broken gear like this

only  the second time, it is rare occurrence.  = it should be OK

= and if it happened on you,  you are extremely unlucky.  

Have a pint or two and blame the God.  🙂

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Self-sacrifice — is it same to Selfless ? ? ?

Time to time, a search-term “Self-sacrifice” came to here. = It seems, the Self

is the main issue of Buddhism, Self-sacrifice and Self-denial is always taking

quite an attention.    And in deed I myself talked about this in the past.

= I wrote that to reach Zen or Buddhism understanding, it is necessary to

have a self-denial or a self-sacrifice in a certain stage of

the pathway to see who the own Self is.

Though, the Aim of Buddhism is not “Wrestling with the SELF”= try to

eliminate and struggle.   But Being Buddhist is simply being selfless,

since the Self is not exists in the first place.

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—– You might be confused. This is the same situation like a “Disease”

= say XYZ syndrome. People may talk about what that syndrome is,

how to treat or eradicate it.   Though the teaching of

Lord Buddha didn’t mention the existence of such disease.  Such disease exists

only in one’s mind = NOT exist mean no point to know about alleged symptom,

let alone how to deny or eradicate it. = In other words, to think Self-denial or

Self-sacrifice as if it was the essence of Buddhism is, utterly a misunderstanding

= Here is a man trying to find and use a fire-extinguisher —– shame, there

wasn’t a fire, he only thought it was.

Don’t mix-up “to know, Fire is not exists” with extinguish a Fire.

Deny the Self is not close or same to the Selfless. Deny mean, the Self has been

 defined  and confirmed of its existence !  = Wrong direction to start.

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In our daily life, fundamentally there isn’t a conscious of Self,

hence things were done Selflessly.

So that, while reading this blog, have you been aware that your eyes are tracing 

the line, not mention that YOU ARE reading this.   YOU are in deed, doing all those

unconsciously. = Since you were alerted, now you became conscious of YOU.

Otherwise you didn’t need to become conscious of yourself to read this — in fact to

do anything or to live.   Ironically, human got over-sized brain and so-called Mind,

even worse got Selfish Ego and Greed kind.   When ever you were alerted and

became conscious about your “right” or “gain or loss” this kind of “Mind” often gave

us the interruption — “Hey, it’s a chance” or “Don’t loose” kind.   🙂

Lord Buddha found that this “Imaginary products” is the cause of all the troubles

even though, we can have a life without it.    And found that the idea of SELF, the

generator of all those Mind is the root cause, despite it is nothing but an illusion.

So, he taught to have “Clear eyes and the Mind” to distinguish the illusion or delusion

and the Truth. —– Yet still, we poor human tend to cling own Self and accompanying

sense of Self-loving Emotion, so that, when we do something for ourselves, we can not

handle it in the detached clear eyes and the mind.   The emotion which bound

the integration of Self is always there.

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In contrast, when we needed to do something for somebody else, not all of us are

very keen = We just do it as an extra task = often with quite detached mind, no

pleasure, even no Self conviction there.

(Let the hands do the work. The mind is somewhere else. 🙂 )

You can see that to do something for others, we do it detached, Selfless manner.

When you do, you do it dispassionate as it was seen objectively in quite rational

manner. = Because, it belong to the others, there is no attachment, still has to do

the job, job would be handled dispassionately as a given task. —– this situation

can be seen as the Self-sacrifice. And the dispassionate detached mind was

mixed-up with the selflessness.

= This was how and why the misinterpretation has occurred.

—– Self-denial or Self-sacrifice is not an idea of Buddhism.   Still, if there was a

situation to DO, real Buddhist would just DO without any question, since

there was no Self, therefore no wrangling Mind but the Karma put him to DO.

Though, by the eyes of others, it could be seen as if it was a self-sacrifice because

of it was not his own needs, and it was interpreted that he was forced to obey the

situation while denying his own will, himself.

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But, to see “Do something to others” only in the view of Self-denial or Self-sacrifice

is in deed the most Un-Buddhist like view.

It is nothing but an Egotistic, stingy, small “mind”.  —– Do something could be

a good exercise, do somebody’s work could be new experience — etc etc.

Don’t waste the time clinging with useless mind.      Just DO.

___/\___

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Junk still a Macro Lens

This is yet another version of the post  “How to recycle / reuse a junk”  

So, you may visit the old posts,  Here and There.  🙂

The Lens here is the same Sigma Zoom lens I’ve used its front element

to make “Wide angle Pinhole” and I’m using its rear element here.

To utilize the rear element though,

I needed to disassemble whole

zooming mechanism to take it out

from the outer barrel.  But instead

to have a trouble to completely

disassemble it, I gave rather rough 

treatment to break a lens barrel.  

(To deal with even Precise Optical

instrument, some time, we need to

use quite a brutal force as well. 😀 )

So, I kept some zooming mechanism to use as a focus adjustment.

The core of the rear optics in the zooming barrel was mounted to

a  M42 to 49 mm thread = Pentax Reverse Adapter.  And mounted to

a Bellows, then to a Canon DSLR body.  = In this configuration, the

lens can give  x5 magnification in the view finder.

Obviously, this massive, awkward set-up is not suits to a field work

—– and anyhow, the subject would be pretty small, it is better to use

on the copy-stand.

This is a test shot on a tablet screen with F-Aperture / Iris fully open.

= This evenness of the quality is not too bad.  

—– In early 70s, Sigma Produced a lens called “Micro-Macro 100mm F4”.

To see the lens, I visited their “Company” in Komae near the edge of the Tokyo.  

It was turned out to be a wooden shack having many lens polishing machine

working on the floor = lots of mess with those lens polishing dark paste.

Sigma seemed to have a knack to correct the aberration in the close range and

the said lens was extremely sharp but also having extremely high contrast

almost like an industrial pattern projection lens.  (So, I didn’t buy.)   

This Butterfly wing became a standard test pattern.  🙂

(This image was clopped to a half = effectively x10 magnification here.)

It seems this lens was the sharpest lens I have in the  x5~x10  range so far.

The advantage is, since their diaphragm / Iris was electronically operated,

once I made a controller, it would be very convenient to use.  

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Walk on Greenwich (2)

Those photos were taken same time as the previous post,

and this is the group of flower images.  Yes, it’s the spring.

And yet more Magnolia.

This is a Rhododendron ! —– It’s crazy.  Rhododendron in March ? ? ?

And this is a Catkin though, I don’t know the Catkin of which tree.  🙂

——————————————–

Those photos were the odd addition. —— round the corner of the town.

Time to time I see Olive tree, still to see it fruiting was very rare.

By the way, this is my 600th post still, nothing special

= life just goes on as Zen.

___/\___

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Walk on Greenwich

Together with a friend who started photography, walking 

the Greenwich became rather regular event.

Anyhow, spring has come and the day was so fine.

And a lots of tourists. (Nothing to do with me though.)

No complaint, or comment. —– why do I need.

(Zeiss 18mm, Tamron SP 500mm on Nikon D810 )

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Good Lens or Cheap Lens

Some regular reader may remember, this lens has appeared here before.

But if you look inside, you may noticed that this one doesn’t have shiny

blue beer can.  = In deed, the front lens is the same though, the panel, and

the pinhole inside is different.  I did swap the panel to single pinhole hence,

it still has semi-fisheye wide angle view but the image doesn’t have a

hallasion created by the Double Density Pinhole.

The front lens came from an ubiquitous cheap Fish-eye Adapter, therefore,

giving fish-eye like distortion and wide-angle view, but being as low cost =

single lens structure showing the Chromatic Aberration.  = Part enlarged

bright-spot of Photo above, rainbow effect is quite visible.

Theory was the same = ” Place a strong concave lens before Pinhole would

creates [Wide angle Pinhole Image]” and this one has a concave lens from a

Canon Zoom Lens. = which is in deed the front element of the same lens I’ve

experimented with its rear element in the previous post.  

And I put the same Double-Density Pinhole panel behind of this lens.

This Canon’s Zoom was EFS type 18~55 mm hence, it was a kind of

medium wide-angle, so that even a front element concave lens was not too

strong = giving modest wide view.  (Though, still having quite a distortion.)

Yet still, the lens carrying the quality of the Canon = this front element

has an Achromatic design = no Chromatic aberration was visible. 

So that, thanks to this high quality Diopt-Pinhole Photo System, on a

full-frame 5D Mk-III camera, I can take high-quality Fuzzy image !

(I’m serious, believe me.   Ha ha ha  😀  😀  )

———————–

IN ADDITION:  This is the front element from a Sigma Zoom Lens.

Lens came from a friend of my friend who gave-up to repair the lens.

(The person managed to disassemble though, couldn’t put it back.)

It seems Sigma was used all sorts of clever tricks to produce the lens

“Reasonable”= not superb, still good enough, light and small, and

most importantly, not expensive for the people of this class.

The front lens seems to be plastic = easy to be scratched (Photo Left)

and the Photo Right shows funny reflection = this is an “Aspherical Lens “. 

You may have a fancy illusion toward the Aspherical Lens. = Yes, Aspherical

lens can give superb optical quality though, these days, it was used as a

magic bullet to save a cost !  (Instead to use many heavy and expensive

Grass, just one plastic Aspherical Lens could eliminates the aberration.)  

Because, Aspherical lens is no longer difficult to make nor expensive.

= Computer give the design and the laser curving can make a precise

die-cast, then the rest would be just a plastic mass-production work. 

As a rather ordinary  x3  Zoom, the strength of the front Concave lens is

similar to the Canon’s Zoom shown before.   The front element consists

two lenses hence it supposed to be an Achromatic design —– though

photo above shows the Chromatic Aberration. (See the rainbow color.)

(of cause, it might be corrected together with the rear element.)

And I put a single pinhole behind of this lens.

[]

Too Early Spring (2)

This is definitely a Cherry tree though, she already started to bloom. 

(on 10th of March !)

And somewhere in the town, I saw two of the Common Magnolia in full bloom.

This is yet another Magnolia tree.  

In London, the temperature became as high as 25 degree C yesterday.

May be having a warmer weather seems to be better than frosty one

—– though, I’m not necessary comfortable.     It’s something wrong.   

PS: ————————–

I just found this cherry tree in full bloom in the Greenwich.  

I’ve been here around every Wednesday though, there wasn’t a flower

last week —– and suddenly today !   🙂   ( Honest, Believe me.  😀 )

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Junk as a Macro lens

Camera lens is the optics = even if it was broken and ended-up in a bin,

lens can still function as an optics.  Convex lens can project an image.  

This lens was a Canon zoom lens which I got free from a camera shop.

Top left of the photo above, is the rear group of the Zoom lens which function 

as a convex lens to project the image.  Convex lens mean, it will work as a

magnifying lens and in reversed direction, it could be a good macro lens.

—– for a fun, I tested this lens unit to take macro photo.

(on the photo, you can see a L-shaped plastic bar on the lens-unit, there were

three of those which held the lens unit in the position though, such flimsy

plastic couldn’t survive a shock and easily broken but impossible to repair, it

was the end of the life ! — replace whole unit may cost half of the lens price.) 

For macro photo, lens unit was stacked on a mount adapter ring using sticky

plastic-pate, and it was mounted on

Canon 5D through 2 sets of Extension

tube. (total extension was 125mm) 

—– After few shots, I found the

sharpness wasn’t good enough,  

so that, I closed the Iris somewhere

half-way. (Photo left)  

This Aperture / Iris  has a

stepping motor built inside

= So, I’m going to make electronic circuit to drive it. 

And, this is how the photo was taken while using a small flash-light.

The photo wasn’t too bad —– considering the lens came from a bin.  😀

This lens unit act like a 38 mm lens, so that it can produce about  x5 macro

image on this extension.   The photo above was a clopped part-enlargement.

(effectively,  x10 magnification = 3.6 mm object was on the 36 mm frame)

Originally, this was a rear half of the good zoom lens. —– Think about, it

is a magnifying glass of £100 cost = it got to be high quality !

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Parts Box ?

To make, modify or repair something etc. what ever to do, it’s always need

to have all sorts of components or parts. —– strange urban myth was that

I’m a kind of professional, so, I have a professional class storage / drawer

box to sort the components.  And people are believing that I got a workshop.  

Wrong !   I’m a non of professional.  Therefore, I’m keeping the components in

the most unprofessional way.

= My storage box for the parts is “plastic Ice-cube tray” used in a fridge. = This is

the most compact and convenient way to keep the small parts in order.

(And cost virtually nothing.  🙂 )

Even just the screw, there are many different sizes, starting from  1mm~.  

About the same size but old  1/8″ doesn’t match to metric 3mm screw.  

So, they has to be kept separates, ETC, ETC !

Situation is far worse in the electronic front. —– if I got to store everything,

I need to have a space, size of a shop.  

So, I keep the items handy I most likely to use, in the Ice-cube Tray.   

I don’t remember when I got this and started to use. —– I might have

brought those from Japan = it’s mean, I’m using this, past  40 years !

For me, the matter is its function.  = as long as it fulfils my needs, that’s enough.  

And, even more crucial matter is  “What I do with those components”.

Parts are just a matterial.  Part wouldn’t creates anything. = Thousands tons of 

cement is not a building.   And the beautiful way to pile-up the cement neither

form a building. —– Building would be counted when it was elected.

So does the component here, when it became a part of a finished product,

it would be counted as a meaningful existence.  (but thousands end-up in a bin)

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Small Repair

In our daily life situation, when

something break down and need to

be repaired, in most of the case it is 

a loose screw or loose connection

kind of very simple fault.

In certain extent, it is true that the

everything break and lost = natural

were ant tear surely eat away its life

though, in the same time if we pay 

reasonable attention such as to give an oil or tighten the screws etc, the things

can last quite long time.  Like my Electric Kettle, it is more than 30 years old.  

In fact, there is little possibility of a Kettle to break down unless switch

it on without a water thence either whole Kettle melted down or burn-out the

heater element.   It’s mean, if we do “Always put only necessary amount of

fresh water and boil” = Kettle was designed to last for ever in this condition.

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But a kind of machine which has a motor inside, its vibration often cause a

break down.  The worst was the worn-out of the motor bearing (due to a rack

of care = dust,  and rack of oiling) otherwise,  a component became loose.

Photo on the top is a control board of a motor tool in which you can see an

exploded component called Triac.

The vibration caused a component to come loose and caused a short circuit.

The damaged parts was visible and the repair was simply to replace and fix them. 

The photo above is a control board of a back-up battery power supply.  

Right side in the left photo, you can see a yellowish box shaped component

was burnt and exploded.  From the shape and the size, it’s easy to see that it

was the same one in the left side, which said 100mF = It was a capacitor.

Remove the damaged one and test with equivalent component, if the whole

unit works (it’s mean no other component has been damaged), it’s the repair.

In this very case, the damaged capacitor was replaced by the equivalent

capacitor (in the photo right). —– But, if no obvious damage was seen, then

complicated trace and analysis game starts.  It’s mean, this  is not a small or 

simple repair. —– Some time it was called nightmare and often

it is cheaper to buy new one.  😀

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