Empty Town

These photos were taken by the Pentax 110 Auto 24mm lens mounted on the Sony A7R-4 camera, while I took a shopping tour to the centre of London through rock downed empty street. (When I need to get a soy source, I have to go Japanese food shop in the centre.)

As you might have guessed, the advantage of this lens is its small size = almost like a body cap. Together with small mirrorless camera, they easily slip into my pocket. Why do I need to use heavy big lens instead ?

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Cropped Image

These are the photos taken by the Pentax 110 Auto 24mm lens on the Sony A7R-4 body, on my shoping tour to the centre through rockdown London street. Though, the images were heavily cropped —– as if the image was discovered in a corner of the original photo.

Despite its humble origin (came as a £5 junk) the pentax 110, 24mm lens I got, gives quite sharp image, hence, able to give quite usable image even after a heavy crop. So, some of the picture may looks like a telephoto image. ( 25mm lens image cropped to 1/2wide and 1/2hight would be an equibarent of 50mm lens image, or 1/4 x 1/4 would be a 100mm telephoto image.)

And the question IS, how many people in the world need to have the hi-lesi photos ? —– My photos in this blog are about 1200 x 800 (500K), even though the original image from the A7R-4 was 60M (9504 x 6336) —– in the other words, 9500 : 1200 (1/8) , 6336 : 800 (about 1/8), the image cropped down to 1/8 x 1/8 shouldn’t have any trouble on the apparent quality of the image. As we are living with the image originated from the dream or bague memory as well, images may not needed to be pin-sharp or forensicly detailed.

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Afghan Cooking

I took picture of my Afghan friend’s restrant kitchen and their cooking. It was quite a fun. 🙂

—— [Taste of Afghan] 215-219 Rye lane, Peckham. London SE15 Tel: 020-36310310

This is the Afghan version of Nan. It’s huge. And it was baked in the Afghan style huge Tandori oven. Which will be served, hunged upright in the AIR ! —– (I don’t know if that was because their stomach was huge or else —– I didn’t ask. 😀

So, this is it. It was somewhat Mixed-meat full diner — for 5 guests ? (IT may cost about £50 —– I don’t know if £10 for a person was expensive or not.) Anyhow, they are well cooked and taste very good ! Though, I don’t remember any of those cooking’s name. (In fact, I expected more spicy hot. —– I’m a man consuming West Indian Hot Chilly Source, one bottle a month)

In here, I used LED right, instead of flash right — because I wanted to capture a vibrant sense of “being here, while they are cooked” with a movement. — as they themselves must have taken ordinary still photo by their own camera, I wanted to show my way using slower shutter speed for some pictures.

(Lens used was Canon EF 40 mm F2.8 Pancake lens on Canon 5D-Mk3)

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Sony Extension Ring

To prevent the close contact, the postman left a percel from China outside of my door while shouting Your Post = I got an Extension Ring delivered today.

To have an even closer shot, the Extension Ring is a pretty handy device. You may find such ring for Sony (10 mm and 16 mm set) as cheap as £15 on eBay. And depend on the lens used, you may get quite a close-up photo (the shorter the focal length the closer you get —– though, depend on the lens, the closed image might be pretty bad unless you stopped down the F-aperture a lot.

With such a cheap price, I bought 3 or 4 set of Sony Extension Ring. Since, I discovered, not all of them are good. Some loose bayonet make the joint wobbly (only 0.1 mm wider gap of bayonet makes it loose) —– even worse, some of them stack solid (only 0.1 mm longer bayonet claw can block them disengage) = To separate the camera body — Ring — Lens, I needed to hack-saw the ring and with sheer force, I ripped off the Lens ! (Photo above right two = used be the DG-NEX Extension 16 mm ring = the left over after a hack-saw job.) The trouble is, you discover the trouble only when you HAVE engaged the Lens – Ring – Body. = Then you realised that you got the trouble of stacked bayonet. —– Because of the internal mechanism of the bayonet, we can’t see which part was blocking the ring to rotate back.

This IS what made in China meant. On the eBay, you may see many “Sony Extension Ring” with different prices —– Give close looks = The ring came from only few original manufacturer, then, different vender selling it in a different price. = Expensive doesn’t mean good quality. Manufacturer seemed to sold off bad lot for give-away price then, corrupt vender sold them in the net, expecting most of the customer never bothered to complain for £15. —– So, on the end I bought plastic one = Easier to hack-saw and when I needed, easy to brake-off before the lens or the camera body brake. (Sound dreadful isn’t it)

Those potos were taken by the Sony E 3.5 / 30 mm Macro lens with Extension Ring on A7R-4 body (see a photo above, before) Right hand side image was a cloped enlarged part of the original photo left.

So, when you are lucky to have good working Ring you may get quite nice close-up photo —– especially with such A7R-4 / 62MP image sensor, we can clop the image for even higher magnification scale. (Otherwise, such as x5 ~ x10 magnification needs to have quite a hard work — and a specialised expencive Macro Lens.)

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ー休話－－－何？ 何故？ Ikkyu ? ? ?

実在したー休＝ー休宗純が実はいかなる人物であったかはあまり解っていない。色々破格の人で盲目の妻を持っていたと言うのは事実らしい。ではー般に広まって、子供の漫画にもなっている「ー休とんち話」とはどこから出て来たものか？

仏教には唯ー至高の聖典といったものが無い。それどころかそもそも唯ーの教義、ドグマに当たるものが無い。

釈尊の言行でも相手により時によりその喩えや説明が異っている。情況に応じて使われる喩えや説明法の違いは方便とか対機説法と呼ばれていて、専らその真意が何であったかが類似の説との比較で議論される。つまり後世の人、我々は專らその説法の内容に気を取られ真意とか裏に隠されたものは云々と頭を悩ませているが、実は問題は内容物ではなく、そのパッケージ、発送法にあったのではないのか？

有名なケシの実（実はからしの実らしい）を求めて走り回ったキサーゴータミの話でも、別に彼女に「走り回り教の奥義」を授けようとした訳ではなく、何故かそうする事によって彼女の心が無心に達し子を失った悲嘆から立直れると言う副次的効果を与えたのである。何故そうなるのかは説明できない ＝ 従って教外別伝であるが, 結果は正しい。

同様に教条の問題では無く臨機応変、柔軟に対応して生きていく事を実践して見せていたその事こそが実に

釈尊の教えでは無かったのか？ーーーこれを対話の場で実践しながら教えようとしたのが臨済宗で（当然、定型を暗記反唱しても意味が無い）ー休禅師はこの対機の対話,自由な発想に長けていたのであろう。

＝で、その脚色伝説化されたものが「ー休とんち話」であった。つまり、内容の教義ではなく外箱の扱い方に禅仏教の教えがあったのである。（延々と歩く事の内に無私無心を体得する ＝ つまり方便の副次的作用で大脳にプログラムされるものが禅仏教の目ざしたもの、解脱、悟りだったと言えるーーーで、これは言葉では説明できない＝実践で体得するもの＝当然不立文字となるし、固定観念、妄執を解脱すればトンチの馬鹿バナシも涌いて来ると言うものだ）笑

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Poor Folk

Even under the restriction, I still need to go out for shopping.  Strangely these days I often receive the change in fancy coins. I thought, Oh I’m lucky today, though I started to wonder it’s happening too often.

Then suddenly I realised the awful reality behind. Those coins must be treasured and kept in the piggy bank many years. Then, while facing this dreadful economic shut down, the people are getting short of money.

Now the people has to scrape the money, even clacking the piggy bank to use the treasured coin to buy a piece of bread (or last can of beer ?)

Poor Folk.

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Deteriorating NIKON

This Nikon Z7 is only about one year in my hand. Camera is functioning normal (like other camera such as D850, A7R4 etc) though, this camera started to show its own deterioration. = such as covers of the connecting points expanded and no longer works as a seal cap (Photo above left). Its skin started to fragmenting (Photo middle) and the cover for the memory card chamber started to expand the size (Photo right) = may not work for dust or water seal any more.

I reported this to Nikon asking their help more than 10 days ago through their web site though, no response at all. = it seems the most serious deterioration Nikon is having is their system / communication / customer care.

I don’t know whether their move of the office from the Richmond to Surbiton was for a cost cutting or else, cutting the meagre cost of plastic material couldn’t make much savings, I think. The one thing clear was, like any other camera manufacturer, Nikon’s financial position is very bad too = may be as such bad try to save a penny from the price of plastic.

By the way, don’t forget, I’m not talking about their cheap toy camera, but it is the 3,000 pound made in Japan camera. = I should be treated with a suply of bit higher quality plastic.

The decent quality plastic should last many many years — the plastic cover on D850 or EOS still keep its shape perfect (after 3 years, 5years) —– is the Nikon quality became a myth now ?

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Daisetsu Suzuki — ZEN

Fortunet to some of you (unfortunet to others) This Viz was in Japanese.

But, he was not a Zen monk — he was a trancelator and he was talking about the difference of the concept between the east and the west. —– So, he speaks, the notion of FREE in the west IS a notion of a relationship = has to start from two subjects. And its meaning IS = the one is free from the other. It is the relation of Subject and the Object. Dominant and Subjected. Such as the God and I. = So, the fundamental ethos / idea of the west starts from here, therefore the social structure too.

In contrast, there is no such God in the east. Instead, the heaven and the nature which we are in its part. Therefore, in the east, we were not created by the God, but we are exists as a part of the universe, nature from the start.

A word which was normally assigned to the word “Free” was 自由（Jiyu) though, the real meaning of this word in the east IS “To be as it is”. —– If it was the case of you = You to be as real you ARE (not the one who you imagined or others defined). (this is close to the meaning of the Zen notion 自在（Jizai）). So, in the Buddhism, You are not exists but the Nature (Dharma which you were a part) IS. So that, the Rinzai Zen try to make you aware who (real) you ARE through dialogue. And the Soto Zen try to disolve you as a part of the nature through practice (sitting and the other daily activities).

So, he was talking something like that.

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Daikon 2020

So, I’m watching the same windowscape of my kitchen window.

Only a difference in these days was, the leaves of the Daikon head. Which was growing well. Some of you might say that I can cut them small and eat or put in a Miso soup —– I know. But I want them to live free and grow. (I’ve tormented the Daikon root badly enough, boil her alive and eat = I need to make a hypocritical excuse by humainly saving the leaves)

It’s a spring. (Forget the hell outside or the world beyond)

So, the Daikon is having her flower bud —– though, would the flower open or not is the different story.

https://yoshizen.wordpress.com/2017/05/17/daikon-flowers/

When she got 30cm tall, before opening the flowers, she lost a vigor of the life. I couldn’t see any reason why, —– it was same as last time. How shame. (May be I need to learn about the Daikon plant start from its seed, not the left over top of a Daikon food.)

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MP Cherry 2020

Those photos of the Multi-petal Cherry was taken by a homemade lens, NZ-B lens on Nikon Z7

May be in a normal sense, such lens may not serve for a photographical use. Yet still, any image could be an image as long as the author = I wanted. Why not ?

Under the COVID-19 pandemic, our activities and the movement has been restricted, so the picture I am producing may looks one pattern too. (Sorry)

The lens NZ-B seemed to have two glasses of which I re-mounted into a zooming barrel and able to focus from infinity to 1/3 close-up. Still, born to be a simple junk lens the image never be sharp. —— But that was what I wanted. 😀

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