Fortnum & Mason’s Window 2018 taken by 3 kind of Lens

Three kind of lenses were used for those photos.  Looks normal straight lens was Ultra Wide Angle Lens (Sony 12~24mm F4 Zoom).  And if the image has dark surroundings it was by the Pentax 110 auto 24 mm F2.8 Lens.   If the image got heavy anastigmat aberration, it was by a homemade So-called Helicoid-B lens.

Some of you may not like though, never mind it wouldn’t kill you.

And I wish you a Happy New Year. 

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Simple Fact = the Truth

It is a simple fact, in our daily life, unless we intentionally think “I am”, we are living without a conscious of self. —– Do you walk while thinking “I am walking” ? Or, are you reading this script here while aware of “My eyes are following this, letter by letter and my brain is taking and understanding its meanings in” —– I don’t think so. You are just walking without knowing who is walking or who makes you to walk. So does, you have been reading this without knowing who IS reading. In deed, You or Your-SELF haven’t been existing as a conscious. That’s because such as SELF is nothing other than a product of the thinking, in other words, it was an intentionally created imaginal figure which is to assert or to demonstrate the ownership of “this person”. In fact it IS a part of one’s desire, Ego and the Greed. So that, such as the SELF, let alone Perpetual self could not exists as a reality. It’s mean, such as a reincarnation could never possible to occur simply because the subject, the SELF, whom to be reincarnated is not existing. How could it be ?

It IS so simple as a straight fact yet still because of it, it is very difficult to explain why. Quite a lot of Buddhists tried to explain though all of them only made a simple truth more complicated. Because of the authoritative attitude of those monks, who want to make their word looks great, they made up unnecessarily heavy theory such as Void or so on. The truth to be with Dharma is not necessarily heavy matter such as even a seed of dandelion can fly away.

Lord Buddha’s teachings were not complicated or theoretical, in order to any followers can grasp the truth by themselves. (not by understanding the complicated words or teachings but through their own observation on the practice = not believe the words but get it by yourself) —– Such as the earliest teachings of 4 noble truth, they were not a kind of complicated deep theory but the clear fact or simple human reality. That’s reality IS the very truth. Like we are here IS the Dharma.

So, when Lord Buddha pointed out the Point, it went straight into the mind of the followers almost like a lightening, the followers could get the truth at once. ( it made a legend and the tradition of the instant enlightenment.)

So, even now those monks still keep talking complicated words and the fantasy of heavens. —– can’t those people open their eyes to see such simple reality and the truth ?

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It’s a season — isn’t it ? ~ ~ ~ Oh, really !

——————————————————————————————  orz (the Sun is coming back)   😀

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😀  😀  😀

Then, the night was happened to be a full moon. (or, full moon ± a night or so) = Full moon on the Winter Solstice wasn’t too bad.

Many years ago, there was a Winter Solstice night party on the hilltop of the Cristal Palace park where used to be an anti-development protesters camp.  And as I was a kind of ex-hippie / a kind of anarchist / anti establishment activist etc, I joined the protesters.  Then, I became a fire-chief / axe-man preparing fire log etc and specialized to make something, repair the tools, sharpening knife etc. 

The said party was held few years after the camp was evicted by the 200 riot police and quite few ex-members came together to celebrate the night with big camp fire. Many of them brought their own music instrument = play music, sing a song etc etc = it was a beautiful night. (Air was very cold, fire was very hot — so and so)  😀

So-called protest camp was organized and kept by the loose membership who was a local activist, fun-loving anarchist, many escapee from the family / school,  drop out jobless etc etc.  In reality, half of them were almost professional protesters. (well-known expert in the treetop house, underground banker, scaffolding structure, electric wind generator, pedal power, organic toilet builder etc etc )  —– As the camp was supported by the local group etc, there always the supply of food and drink = somebody cook the meal and there are many tent, underground banker, treetop house to sleep = its a nice camping experience for a person who got tired of busy life, and a nice freedom away from the family for young people.

(I wouldn’t branding those young people just as a bad boys, bad girls who is seeking easy excitement.  Since I met quite few who came from a disfunctioned family, desperately seeking a listening ear and an advise while facing their turning point in their life. —– I’m sure, for some people, live together with very unusual people under very unusual circumstance, it must be a unforgettable experience / event, which would shape their later life.)   I also met the same faces from the Newbry-Bypass camp who loves free life while moving camp to camp.  (Same as the house boat people, living free without paying the tax. = Refuse to be entwined into the “System”)

As an ex-alpinist, there was no problem for me to sleep in a tent or tree-top house, still, I kept commuting while walking an hour go and back everyday, because eating hot cooked meal was OK but other than that, everything was too filthy especially a kind of sexual orgies was utterly out-of-question, regardless some of those young girls were quite pretty and friendly. —– So that the members said to be still thinking that I was an undercover, as I never touch the drag or girls, neither being a gay, or drink even a beer.   (People doesn’t like a clean person.  It seems that the comradeship developes out of sharing the dirty gilt.    😀  )

—– so, looking back the days, it’s a strange feeling “Are those people now in their 40s 50s and having square life with own family and kids ?” I would say, Or, Really ?

Then the next (22nd) morning. = Multiple (x4) Pinhole saw the new sunrise.  orz   😀

Often, it is important to take a view outside of the main stream. —– You may say, main stream mean common sense though, quite often, so-called common sense has been manufactured by the media / the establishment / system.  And most of the case, the system operates by the criteria of efficiency / productivity, much more than a human needs .  But time to time, we can discover our real needs is not lay inside of the productive process by tinkering the broken “Product” = the life in the camp might have taught those young boys the way how to find the alternative which is much closer to our needs.  Then, to become parents, able to tell their kids, the way to live in their own way.

Really.  Is it better ? —– Why you chase “Better”? = It IS exactly the way to chase the efficiency / short cut.   Longer walk tells you more, and you see it on the day, you actually walked. (Like a details of the place to what you can see from the car.)

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Analog — Digital

Why such picture was heading the post “Analog — Digital”?    I guess most of the reader here has no idea what I meant, how this picture signify the Analog approach to stabilise the camera.  (To stop the vibration, instead to remove the cause, just forcibly gagging up, is quite an analog !)    The picture was a camera fitted with a modified chest-pod. (Because this mirrorless camera’s shutter shock was too much for their light-weight and small body, I needed to use such device to block the camera movement especially when I use almost weightless small Pentax 110 lens. —– that was the reason why Sony put the image stabilizer in the body for their new model.)

Till only a decade ago, there was many camera support / holder / bracket/ balancer to mount a cine camera which can eliminate / reduce the camera-shake.  All of them were using a clever design made with the counter balance / spring to stabilizing the camera when the cameraman was on the move.  So, when the camera was up and down, the counter balance or spring has to compensate the movement exactly the opposite direction = the camera’s weight / center of the gravity etc has to be carefully adjusted to the individual camera and its configuration. (when the lens was changed, the adjustment has to be done again from the start.)    But, when, the Gimbal came and took its position, it changed the whole story over night. 

The people are believing that the Gimbal was made with the Digital technology but they were not.  Gimbal was built while using the high-speed analog servo system.

Unlike popular misconception, digital system is slower than the analog system.  Any electronical system need to have the time to make it response.  Therefore, when the process has many stage, even the stage of just amplifying the signal, it takes certain time, which mean a delay.  And to drive high-power device, it need to drive them by higher current, and to do such drive, there needs to have several stage to increase the current though, with the development of high current semiconductor such as D-Mos, IGBT, etc, direct drive became possible without time delay.   Its mean, when the movement of the camera was detected downward, in the same moment, motor can move the camera upward.  Together with the development of such as a core less motor which can move instantly, the Gimbal was materialized.  And the same idea of  feedback control, the image stabilizer became very popular.

You might heard of the word “Digitizing depth of 12 bit or 16 bit” kind.  People might be thinking, 16 bit has 4 more bit data on top of 12 bit — was utterly wrong.  Say assuming the maximum output voltage from the image sensor was 1 volt. Then to measure 0.9999 Volt or 0.99991 volt in the detail of 1/16384 volt is by the 14 bit, 1/65535 volt is by the 16 bit depth. = The difference is how smaller its measurement would be divided. (imagine, the difference using inch or metric measure.)   In an A-D conversion, to measure in 16 bit, the reference voltage has to be increased 1/65535 volt each time and compared to the output voltage = count up to 65535 mean max 1 volt.  And to do this with its “Clock frequency” is all about digitizing process.  (Counting this to each three BGR (but actuary BGGR four) on 47 Mp is all about the imaging process.)   Yes in deed, it’s a lot of work !

So, in reality, Digital process is just a way to handle the electronic phenomena with counting measure — that’s all. (Save the additional implication / benefit etc)  Somewhat, the Stone-aged man handling the life, say I killed 200 kg deer with 2 kg axe, instead of saying I killed a big deer with my heavy axe.  —– how civilized our digitized mind is !  (The irony is, even if we could accurately measure, we still brandish an axe and kill = work is still the same. —– and even if the color was digitized into millions of individual color, our eyes can distinguish only 1000 colors = that was how jpg operates.)

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110 Pentax 24mm Lens test

Considering the image size of the 110 Instamatic was 17x13mm, so that a lens for that camera could able to perform like this on the 35mm full size was rather amazing.  (In fact, inevitable corner fall off is creating even nicer atmosphere)

Such a small lens on a small mirrorless camera is very handy though, to be honest, such convenience makes rather casual attitude of the shooting, and often produce unsharp / blurred image.  I often create blurred image though, it was “when I intended” —– otherwise, it was nothing but a failure.  (another trouble was, that against such small lens, the shutter shock of A7R is comparatively big = tend to make blurred image) 

Such pictures may not have any artistic value still, if we could read the name etc. the details on the goods, there might be a bit more interest.

I wouldn’t pretend any meaning on those images, —– just an atmosphere.

And may be a kind of the test of the lens character.

This photo showed rather interesting phenomenon.  The center is not as sharp as its surroundings = the lens may be showing the curvature of the image.  —– But, I don’t believe such as like the Pentax made a lens having an image curvature.   This got to be what they intended =  intended what = to compensate the curvature of the film. 

I think, other than the Pentax design team, not many people has tested this lens on the camera other than the dedicated  Pentax 110 Auto  body.   Naturally,  the test on the 110 Auto was done by an Instamatic Caset film = which may have inherited curvature of the film though it has been compensated by the lens’ own image curvature.   It’s mean, nobody was able to notice the image curvature of this lens before.  (other than the very Pentax design team) —– How interesting.   😀

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110 Pentax 24mm Lens (2)

I realized that the tiny toy like Pentax 110 camera’s 24 mm F2.8 lens appeared to be very critical lens.  What I mean critical is, as it was designed by the Pentax, aiming to achieve their 110 photo’s quality comparable to full size 35 mm, so the quality of the lens is very high —– and it’s requirement / the standard must be also high. 

In this blog, I’ve been plying with hundred of tinkering job, —– though, its standard is pretty casual.  I’m doing it in my kitchen, without having even an optical bench.  And I demonstrated that how the standard of the optics can be not critical. = typically like “Twisted lens” demonstration or  “F-Aperture control” kind. —– still I could manage those tinkering with good success.   So, when I adapted 110 24mm lens to Sony A7R body, I just made a hole in a Sony’s body cap and inserted the bottom of the 24mm lens then fixed it by Epoxi glue.  I thought, I’ve adjusted infinity very well (as A7R’s focus peaking works perfect) —– but later, I noticed that the focus was not even = left-hand side was a bit out.

Yet, the slant of the lens was barely visible = the lens may not off the straight perpendicular less than 1 degree —– though, lens was short focus 24mm, of which only 2mm of lens shift makes the focus from infinity to 0.35m.  It’s mean, even less than 0.1mm off-position on one side would spoil sharp infinity image. (Especially, here the lens is always fully open F2.8)

There was a funny paradox here.  24mm lens for 110 Pentax was a standard lens, = obviously, the lens for 110 Pentax was expecting to be used and worked as a standard lens.  But the same 24mm lens for 35mm camera was a very wide-angle. Therefore, while 24mm lens for Nikon was having distance scale  ∞, 3, 1.5, 1, 0.7 —m, 24mm lens for 110 Pentax has much finer scale  ∞, 8, 4, 2, 1.5, 1, —m,  and the focus seemed to be also quite critical.  (But, to fully satisfy those potential in the Pentax Auto 110 needs to have very delicate, fine handling while see the image in its small SLR view finder —– though, as the 110 body here was broken and I couldn’t see the finder image, I can’t tell if their aim to make hi-quality image was materialized by this system as a whole or not.

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Rather Blured image

Ultimately, on the photography, it is irrelevant to know the name of the camera.  Since, the matter is its end result = image.  (Yet still, if you want to know, those photos here were taken by the Kodak Vest Pocket Camera lens on the Sony A7R body.) 

(Incidentally, do you noticed that the guys behind the gate of the Downing street holding a machine-gun.) —– now you must be convinced, that they looks like holding one, —– don’t they ?   In deed they really looks like so.  (you know it’s all in your mind —– you are only seeing my dubious picture)   😀

So, we are seeing what we want to see.

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110 Pentax Lens on A7R

OMG, —– I found a EOS 620 body and a tiny Pentax 110 (both of them were broken junk state) for hefty £5 in the odds & ends box of the City Camera Exchange, Strand Shop.  (They got the best junk in London as well as the latest expensive cameras, and if you feel hungly, you can have the best lunch or dinner in the Simpsons, only few steps round a corner.)   😀

EOS body may be used as a display dummy for my (Canon mount) homemade lens, and the tiny 110 Pentax lens, should make a good fun to test it. 

To test this Pentax lens on Sony A7R body was very easy = just mount the tiny lens on an A7R body cap — Infinity focus was happened to be almost straight.  (but there is no Iris as the camera was designed to give an Auto-exposure by Aperture and the Shutter speed combined system.  = So, the lens works as a 24mm F2.8 only lens, and the focus works very well. (If your finger is small enough to pinch its small lens front)   😀

As the lens is rather bright F2.8 = focused depth is quite shallow yet still, the image where focused was very sharp and crisp.   Though, since the lens was designed for 110 Instamatic size, image circle doesn’t cover the 35mm full screen of course.   (and I wouldn’t attempt to make it Retro-focus with a concave lens to spread the image.)

Don’t to be fooled, even if the camera, lens were such small, like a children’s toy,  Pentax seemed to designed its lens with their full force. = image was such crisp = I would say, too prosaic !  The lens showed no chromatic aberration, in fact it got no aberration at all.  (May be in reverse use, lens may work as a pretty good macro lens. —– I’ll test it on future.)

Still, such small lens on the small mirrorless camera is very comfortable and CUTE ! = I wouldn’t complain the dark surroundings.  Its a own character and a part of fun.

for comparison, this was a shot by the 110 AUTO 18mm —– think, this is 18mm and fully open f2.8 = the quality is very high !

Well, we can have a lot more fun from those old lenses.

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Expression

Following the previous post, this is the even more enigmatic piece.   In fact, I just lost a word and got my jaw dropped.       I’m not sure, whether I can call it a dance —– or just an expression happen to be on the body ?

(The viz looks quite dark and mysterious, even nightmarish. —– and that’s I like) The Art in this level would negate all the question such as where it came from or even who made this.  Though, the harsh reality is, we may not able to see the same, after some years or decade as the body of the performer will be lost.   Without the body, its controlled movement and its moment, this art couldn’t exist. —– should we feel sad ?  —– the even harsher reality is, the memory, and its container = brain will be also rotten in the same time.    Who said art is long ? —– (Youtube viz may last longer —– yet it’s horrifying to image, after all the living things extinct, still those video data will remain as the electronic form like a fossil stone. 

Those two above were more like commercial dancing still showing some relation to the first piece.      (They are quite beautiful.)

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What ? ? ?

Among the viz from the net, this is the one, made me puzzled the most. —– sound somewhat eastern Europe / gipsy ?  (the Brass sound even Mexican.    😀 )  —– Was this originated from southern India ? = it’s mean brought by the gipsy. —– then after many clicks, I discovered that, WITH MY AMAZEMENT, the music was  Polish folk-song.   Still, I don’t know where the style of the dancing came from, how the costume was designed etc.etc.  ? ? ?

(This one got only the same sound —– just give a hint of what they were !)

In the world, there are so many what we are completely out of imagination.

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