Pink — Impressionist’s Pink !

In early spring when the sun is not strong, the flower has to rely on its

hi-visibility color = yellow to appeal to the insects.

But when the spring deepen with increasing  sun light,  flowers who got other

tactics such as sweet scent doesn’t need to rely on its visibility,  hence  free to

pleasure  with another color. —– Then the Pink become in fashion.  😀

Though, I’m not knowledgeable enough whether those Pink has any effect to the

human psychology. Why a young lady saw something naughty blushs pink (red ?)

or a glass or two drinks makes the cheek pink ?

My friends has been rather wondering, or even suspicious about my eyes or

mental condition if those fuzzy images were the symptom of poor eyesight or

a kind of drowsiness for some kind of intoxication.  😀  

Surely, drunken wouldn’t say “I’m drunk” and I think I can focus if I need.

Those photos above were taken by the lens from Kodak Fun Camera on 5D.

But this photo above were taken by the Wide-angle double-density Pinhole.

And this one is a normal photo as a reference

—– whether you feel boring or sigh of relief (at home).   😀

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Shooting Party

Yesterday, I’ve joined a Shooting Party who had taken the photographic course

together many many years ago !

As they are living in the Greenwich area, party went to familiar

Greenwich Park.

I went there with my Fish-eye lens, 24~70mm Zoom and

I field-tested yet another funny lens from a Disposable-camera !

Fish-eye lens worked well as always.  🙂

And those pictures were taken by another fancy lens 

= Wide-angle Double-density Pinhole !

The lens (?) worked perfect for ” the Impressionist’s Photography”.  🙂

(May be I need to have costumed actor and actress ! )   😀

Easiest way to make impressive picture is —– take picture of grand subject.  😀

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Lens from Toy-camera

——- (Photo above :  Left = the edge of the lens has been cut to put a LED illumination.)

On the market, there are many adapter lenses for a Smart-phone or Tablet camera

to take wide-angle or tele-photo picture.  And many people might have

experimented to put magnifier glass or even the interchangeable lens of a SLR on

front of a Smart-phone camera.  = Yes, the lens placed on front, affect the image.

——– (Photo above Left = With additional lens, small letters on a receipt

——– was magnified = looks very sharp.)

Though, in most of the case, any lens put on front, functioning like a close-up lens.

And only the concave lens (such as short-eye-sighted specks lens kind) could make

the image smaller = wide-angle effect but may not give you any sharp image.  

Yet still, they works well like as a close-up lens, even like a microscope.

The photos here shows the effect of a small lens put on the Tablet (Nexus 7).

The very lens came from a kind of toy-camera.

(Lens and the Image censer looks same to the £30  Security camera.  😀 )

Still, this lens can project the outside image to the 4x3mm size censor.

It’s mean, use this lens in reverse, the lens can pick up the image of 4x3mm

and projects it to the land-scape size. 

So, I mounted this lens on the top of  18cm  spray can,  same way as I did before.

——– (Photo here = Bird’s feather  x40  magnification)

Apparently, the lens got  6mm or so focal length and 180mm extension  (together

with camera’s 44mm flange-back) it can give  whopping  x40  magnification.

——– (Photo here = Butterfly’s wing again —–  x40  magnification)

(Though, I wouldn’t say, with such magnification, taking photo is easy at all.  

= image in the view finder is very dark and the depth of field is extremely shallow

= with slight movement, the image vanishes.)    😀  

—– Coincidently,  I found a collection of Butterfly wing’s photos.  It must be the

result of months, if not years of work (together with a lots of digital manipulation)

= still pretty impressive.

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F-Aperture / Iris Control (2)

This is the up-date of the post with the same title before.

The temporally test circuit of the Iris control then has been made to

a proper board.  Still, where to put the battery hasn’t yet fixed.

(At moment the power was connected through the cables.)

To make the drive circuit of Iris control was rather simple (= Just put the

necessary components on a piece of strip board.) though, where to put the

Open-Close Switches gave me a headache.  —– Ideally, it should be inside of the

Camera or make the Camera’s shutter button function for the trigger of this Iris

control too.  (Asking too much !)    Or, alternatively, put the Iris Close Button

right next of the shutter button and press both of them in the same time.

—– On the end, I decided to use the Camera’s remote trigger switch.  

Remote trigger switch is double switch.    First half press activates the

auto-focus then deeper press trigger the shutter.  Though, to the hand made

macro lens, auto-focus switch is no use.   I decided to use this switch to close

the Iris, and put a change-over switch to select  either Focus or Iris close.

(The button to Open the Iris was put the back of Remote trigger.)

In this setting, Focus and Framing can be done while Iris was fully open,

then the press of button, first close the Iris then expose the picture.  

With a use of  TTL Flash-light, almost automatically a photo was made !

—–  a short coming was, as the trigger was made by Remote Switch in the

left hand, camera was held almost right hand only. = a bit heavy.  😦  

Still, the Camera in the free-hand, then just click the shutter and enable

to take picture is a great convenience.  🙂  🙂

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F-Aperture / Iris Control

As I wrote in the previous posts, I have recycled rear element of the

broken Zoom lenses to use for the macro photography.  Both of them were

Canon EF type lens which has an electronically controlled Diaphragm / Iris.

Electronic Iris has an advantage, they  only needs electronic connection,

not a rigid mechanical connection though, this electronics is not just a cable.

—– If the recycled lens was maintained

all the electronics as before, Iris could 

be controlled by the camera side. 

But when the lens was stripped down

to Iris and its Pulse motor,  it is

necessary to create a driving circuit 

for the motor. = And this Pulse motor

needs to have a specific alternating pulse.  

So that a Pulse generator and a Full-bridge

driver would be needed.

(If you would like to know about those pulse motor and its proper control,

please Google  >>> Bipolar stepper driver schematic )

Electronics is a funny phenomena.  It can be elaborated to have Hi-Tech

sophistication but in the same time it still works in a very primitive way.

= Such as the Electro-Magnetic device could be as sophisticated as HDD, still,

if you wind a wire around an iron nail and connect it to the battery, it would

work as an Electro-Magnet and pull the other iron pieces. 

To drive such pulse-motor, there are many IC chips in the market though

most of them are for higher voltage.  I needed to make it using discreet

components = as long as it generates alternating pulses, the Iris works.

(The original driving circuit has a PWM = Pulse-Width-Modulation for

smooth and quiet operation, but here better not ask too much)

The photo above is a circuit to open-close the Iris in the cannibalized

rear element from a Sigma Zoom lens.   (Can drive Canon’s  as well !)   

(Circuit was too simple, I didn’t even bothered to use Prototyping Beloboard

—– just soldered together. = as long as it works, good enough to test)

[]

From the test, I found the circuit was just enough = no frill, bare minimum.

(Ideally the F-Aperture value indicator may be needed though, in practice,

I may not need more than “Fully open for focus — close down for shooting”

= I decided to put only  two switches, open and close. ~ ~ ~ When the building

work progressed, I’ll show the new photos.  🙂

———————————-

PS:   WP noticed me, this is not only my 602nd Post but this is also the

Anniversary of 5 years  on blogging. —– gosh.  😀

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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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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.

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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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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.  😀

][

Electronics in the Lens

Lens of today’s hi-tech DSLR was connected to the camera body

on its bottom, mechanically and electronically.

Except the Canon EF Lens (for EOS), the Aperture lever has to be

pushed from the camera side, therefore when the lens was used in

rivers direction, either the Lens become completely manual (if the 

Aperture ring was still there) or just out of control. — But Canon’s EF

lens has its own stepping motor to drive the Aperture, hence as long as

they are electronically connected, the Aperture will function as normal.

(If not connected, there is no way else to use Aperture but fully open.)  

To have an electronic connection, we only need a simple cable !  

So, I made this adapter, long time ago, in fact soon after the Canon

introduced their EOS camera. ( yet, it was a film camera then.)

—– the connection between the camera and a lens was made by two

sets of male and female contacts. = I made and mounted them on

a Body-cap and a Lens-rear-cap,  and jointed them with a cable !  

= With this cable, even when a lens was held in angle, still the

lens function like as normal.

I could use this on EOS 620 and RT with EF 28 mm lens for

experimental close-up with tilted lens etc —– though, few days

ago, when I tested this again, with my latest Canon gear, 

I found, 5D camera refused to work with this.  😀  😀

[]

On the appearance, it was just an 8p connections and two of them

were the ground line, and the signal lines for each direction =

only 5 lines seems to be used though, as long as all 8 lines were

connected one-by-one there should be OK, other than the trouble of

impedance or magnetic interference kind, caused by an extended wires.     

(Those interference might be used to detect unauthorized connection.

And if anything odd was detected, Camera CPU may check the Lens’ ID.

—– If no answer was received, then camera stop to work normal.  🙂 )

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These days, the lens transmit their own ID for their own graphic program

to correct the individual characteristics of the lens, such as the aberration

or corner fall-off of the light.  = To correct the Chromatic Aberration,

Red signal from the Pixels would be shifted inward and Blue signal would be

shifted outward accordingly ! (So, the picture become even sharper !  😀 )

Though, I’m not necessary happy with this kind of approach —– once we

start to rely on computer graphics, we may no longer need to have such as

ultra wide angle lens or fisheye-lens, as we can get the same effect by

stitching the photos or use distorting graphic effect or “filters”.

Graphic design is a desc top process, it is not a photography on the spot.

Photography is a Site-specific, Moment-bound “interaction”

not just a visual effect.

= What “I” witnessed and how I lived with its moment  IS  the matter.

If the artefact left was a fake, the person and the life was a fake. 

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At a moment, I’m quite amazed how  Canon 5D  could detect

“something odd” about this cable, and teasing me while showing

photo-number [50] in the view finder, instead of [950] on the

camera top,  and not showing “Focused” indicator  etc.

—– not malfunction but maliciously falsified on purpose.  😀

(It takes time to debag and hack-into the camera. )

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