Oxford Street —> Selfridge X’mas decoration (?)
The all photos here were taken by a homemade 1/4 lens on NikonZ7.
Economical downtern reflected from uncirtainty of the Brexit etc etc might be making shy economy, hence their design were pretty economical here too.
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1/4 Lens for London
They are the snap shots by the 1/4 Lens on the Nikon Z7 —— colour balance was automatic ( B/W effect was not intended = just happened)
Incidentally, it was not the end of the world. 😀
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Hi-ISO noise
Till now, I thought that the noise caused by Hi-ISO setting was just a nuisance, or necessary evil though, I became aware, in certain case, it could be an useful tool.
(ISO represent the degree of amplification of the signal —– any electronic signal would produce the noise when it was intensively amplified = whether it was audio signal, or light signal from the image sensor, when they were amplified, the residual charge in the circuit line etc etc were also amplified hence those noise was superimposed onto the main signal. — you may say why the digital signal has noise = the output signal of image sensor IS analog, until they were AD converted. = Here, in the AD converter, the depth of 12 or 14 bit etc decide the quality of the image. = one bit more mean twice as much process will be needed for each pixel of the image sensor ! = You see how enormous the task is = That’s why almost all digital camera is Japanese (inside of Leica is Panasonic) and almost all image sensor is Sony —– Who else would bother to take such awkward task in the world. 😀 )
Even among the oil paint, many different styles = so, in the soft paintery effect photography, there could be a grainy style —– looks not too bad.
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Morning Sky – Dec’19
This one was by the Fragmented lens on Nikon Z. (Camera itself set the ISO to 12800 (not me) = So, the noise was too high — still, as an image, it wasn’t too bad. Unlike a soft smooth image, the roughened up texture showed quite strong impact. I like it.
This image was too murky though, that was what this homemade lens was made for.
Only a decent lens in this post = Zeiss Distagon —– costed me a bit. 😀
Small part of disposable camera lens makes not too bad image !
This Pentax lens itself IS a pretty good decent lens, even if it was for 110 size camera but mounted on a full size mirrorless Nikon Z.
We can take picture in any excuse. Nothing hinder us to be creative.
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Night sky
Time to time, we see extremely red night sky or red moon. Yet still, we may not necessary take picture of it, or to know why the sky was so red.
When it’s red, it’s red all night till morning.
This photo was taken by the “Fragmented Lens” with the colour balance setting for Shade. (long exposure showed more noise)
The same camera but the lens was changed to 110 Pentax 24mm lens.
When the camera’s colour balance was set to Auto, the image became like this = was this because the red shift was nutralised by the camera’s image processor, OR red was not there in the first place but created in the camera ? (To compensate “Shade” = 7000K Colour balance, the image would be pushed to warmer orangery colour, hence red sky !)
And this photo showed that the red colour was in fact the refrected light on the clowd. Unless the light from the ground was refrected back, we can’t see it, in other words the sky was not burning but the grounds.
Then, how about tonight full (?) moon in the sky ?
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Fragmented Lens
After making 1/2, 1/4 lens cameras, there are many fragmented lenses left behind. Even fragmented — its still functions as an optical lens.
Zennist’s tendency is = No attachment, — yet still, (strangely) go for whole hog. So, why not test those small plastic fragment ?
As (or used to be) an optical lens of one time use camera, it works as a lens, even though it was fragmented to such small fraction.
And a remarkable point of those fun camera lens IS they are very well designed aspherical omuni-focus lens. Therefore, they can capture the image in distence to
close subject such as this without any focusing control. (well, you may say, more or less)
So, for the general use, they do an enough work. What do you ask more (for its less than £10 price). 😀
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1/4 lens !
After two attempt of two 1/2 double lens, it would go to even 1/4, naturally. (Anyway, it was only a matter of hacksaw and a glue work. And it was what an Otaku lives for. 😀 )
The plastic lens was mounted to the Sony A7R camera (yet the lens can be attached to the Nikon Z as well.)
So, this homemade lens will produce the image even worse than those W-lens A or B ! 😀 —– can you guess how happy I am. Ha Ha Ha 😀
In case, if anyone wanted to see more natural image for a comparison, those are the images from the ordinary (?) 110 Pentax 24mm lens on the Nikon Z.
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Ensign and Old film
I found this Kodak 120 film inside of a junk Ensign camera. Camera itself may be 70 years old and the film might be as old as 60 ? years. —– the reason why I said not 70 years old was, when the film was developed, the image was very foggy = I guessed, it must be caused by the dirty lens (hence it was a junk) = Film was shot long after the camera lens became a foggy junk. (To clean the lens, I use Methylated Spirit. Never use Surgical alcohol which leaves skin cream, nor White Spirit which may melt some plastic and paint)
As I wrote before, this camera has almost no control, other than winding a film and click the shutter (of which the shutter duration was only known to be as Inst, or Time (B). = no Iris or any focus control. ——- Yet still, the developed old film showed rather consistent exposure (despite they were severely fogged) = may be the shots were made under the same hazy sun (very little shadow) on the well customised landscape.
To test the camera, I loaded the camera with a fresh Ilford FP-4 film, ISO 125 (I got it from the Photographer’s Gallery shop for £5 —– Jessop like shop doesn’t sell B/W film any more, not mention 120 films) and I exposed the film with the different lighting condition while making each record. (Such as the light level of what Sony A7R with its 40mm lens tells under F8 setting = I guessed the “Inst” of Ensign shutter was about 1/25 Sec’ and if A7R said 1/10 — give a click twice for the same image (while the camera was fixed on a tripod).
— (Was the theory. But as my mind was diverted to check the exposure reading in the A7R and to write the record down, I made double exposure mistake = the test was a mess. 😀 —– And I realised that I was neither a Zen Master. 😀 )
(Development of the films were done by D-76, 1+1, 20 degree C, 11 min’, 10 second agitation on every min’ )
Forget academic talk or Otaku taste kind. See what you can see on front. People like dirty old man likes pretty image, like “Miss— kind”. What’s wrong with it ? 😀
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Tripod for Ensign Camera
As I wrote in the previous post, Ensign Ful-Vue camera has no tripod screw, despite that its shutter has Time (B) setting. It’s not difficult to put a 1/4″ tripod screw = just fix a thick metal plate with 1/4″ screw hole to the camera bottom. —– ? – Then gave a thought. Virtually all of my cameras has been fitted with tripod quick plate. —— So, instead to put a 1/4″ screw plate, then attach a quick plate on it, why not to put a quick plate directly to the camera bottom.
And the quick plate doesn’t necessary to be a genuine heavy one = can be a simply bent aluminium plate. = why not. 😀
With a homemade quick plate, the Ensign camera can be mounted to a tripod in such a convenience. (While costing almost nothing ! )
This is the beauty of DIY homemade. 😀
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Ensign Viewfinder Camera ?
This photo was taken through the viewfinder of the 1940s Ensign camera.
Ensign camera was produced by the English Houghtons Ltd. And this streamlined Ful-Vue was made around 1946, using 120 film for 6×6 format.
I got this camera from the London Camera Exchange’s odds and ends box however as it came together with other shopping, I don’t know how much the price of this one though —– as it was non working dirty junk, price could not be more than few pound. SO, I spent next few days to clean and repair. (now the camera was cleaned and in good working condition !)
Camera itself was designed in the streamlined style and having large “aerial image viewfinder” (so that, it was named “Ful-Vue”) —– While checking this aerial image, I realised that I can take picture through this viewfinder. = = = So, I fixed a thin Nikon Z mount adaptor on Ensign’s viewfinder.
Unlike aerial image itself, the image through viewfinder lens could give only 1 feet (30 cm) focus. —– still, for close-up photo, its soft image was pretty interesting.
Though the viewfinder lens doesn’t have any great quality. Its got quite a heavy chromatic aberration. (still, for a fuzzy photo fan, those red and blue fringes were the mere accompanying decoration)
A difficulty of shooting with this camera was, to shoot a front subject while looking down, while following the subject which moves opposite direction. (because, they are the mirror image —– yet, strangely, while viewfinder’s aerial image is not reversed, why the photograph through the same lens got to be reversed or upside down ? ? ? 😀
May be I should have proper shooting test of this camera through its main lens, which is about 95 mm focal length with 12 mm diameter (its mean, the lens is about F8) —– but, no F-aperture, or Focus control ! = even worse, I don’t know how fast is its “Instant” shutter speed. (Shutter has Instant and Time ( = B) setting though, there is no tripod screw — How to use this B setting ? ? ? = 1940s people must have very solid steady hand) 😀
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