Double-Density Pinhole Photography

Ideally, soft-focus image should have solid focused core and the soft flair around it.

The more the photographer is decent grown-up person, even soft image is rather subtle.  Though, I’m not very well grown up decent kind = tend to take it to the extreme   😀  (Hence, if I cook for myself, the taste is pretty strong = if it got to be spicy hot = it would be extremely HOT = Otherwise, what is the point to cook hot food  😀 )

Therefore, my soft-focused image goes to even more extreme = and in this  experiment, I gave a larger pinhole halo to small pinhole image = Concentric Double pinhole photo image  🙂   My approach to the Life is ” Why not ?”  😀

How you can put small hole inside of another hole  ? ? ?  = 😀

This is a Philosophical Problem = Hole is where VOID is = unlike gap, hole was represented by its circular edge, and this edge define the area of the Void = its inside is already Void, hence, there is nothing to form yet another hole  😀 

In photographic term, Pinhole can act like a lens, provided when the correct exposure was given though, when two hole exists in the same place, how to give long enough exposure (shatter time) for smaller hole while giving shorter time for larger hole ?  = 😀

—– My solution was, to cover larger hole with ND filter to reduce the incoming light.

(There is a gray filter called Neutral Density Filter to reduce the light, though together with Kodak CC (Color Compensating) filter they became hard to obtain item now.) 

—– Instead to use ND filter, I found an Aluminum coted plastic film of tea packaging. —– Not good enough for normal photography yet, enough for fuzzy pinhole photography  😀

[]To measure the Density, I placed this metallic film on front of the lens = the exposure reading was dropped from 1/1000th to 1/15 = 6 stops drop on shutter speed. 

Hence, the size of pinholes should have also 6 stops difference in F-aperture logarithmic scale.

(such as 2mm, 1.4mm, 1mm, 0.7mm, 0.5mm, 0.35mm. 0.25mm = larger pinhole, 2 mm and small one should be 0.25 mm)  —> The metallic film was stacked behind of 2 mm pinhole and a 0.25 mm hole was pierced in the center.  —– (From the result, I think, the lager hole should be 1.5 mm and smaller hole 0.18 mm = images would be a bit more sharper  😀 )

Still, the experiment which costed virtually nothing = results are not too bad  😀

———————————

PS :  Few people who has failed to do this kind of pinhole photo asked me why —– I’m using equivalent lens (this time 100mm lens) for set-up and framing, then the View-finder was covered up with black-tape.  Stray light from View-finder makes wrong reading of exposure.

Most importantly, I’m using extremely capable Canon 5D (Mk 2 and Mk3).  

Pinhole photography may not be done with another camera. 

For instance, a pinhole shot done in 5D Mk3, with ISO 3200 and AV setting, 6 seconds —– the same pinhole mounted on Nikon D810 with the same ISO 3200 setting and 6 seconds couldn’t make picture, as it looks more than 3 stops under exposure.   Even with 30 sec’, 60 sec’, 120 sec’, further with ISO setting Hi2 (equiv’  25600) didn’t make ANY difference. 

Nikon couldn’t work with non-CPU incompatible lenses.

—– I wonder if anybody has ever done Astro-photography with Nikon D810, I would like to know how it was done ?

—————————————-

PPS :  I found the way to to take Pinhole Photo by Nikon D810.

(1)  Go to the Menu / Non-CPU Lens / and set Max F-Aperture to F22.

(2)  Push Meter Coupling Lever (for Aperture Ring) anti-clock-wise, till F-aperture indicator on the Control Panel shows F45.

(3)  With ISO setting, 3200 or so and [A] (Aperture priority) = camera would give more or less correct exposure.

(*)  To adjust the exposure, even if you use the Exposure Time given by [A], say 2 second for Manual setting and select 1 second or 4 second —— exposure couldn’t be correct unless you push Meter Coupling Lever to F45 position.  (Because, the brightness of the image was not determined by the size of pinhole and the shutter-time, but by the gain of signal amplification in the image process )

 —- In fact, you can control Exposure Level by this Lever (by pushing it to F32 or F64 etc) = it is very awkward —-> Solution would be, tie a string to the Lever and fix it to the position of F45, and the Exposure adjustment should be made by changing ISO setting to another value.

London 2012 Festival at Southbank

Way back from the center and crossing the Waterloo Bridge, I saw huge Baobab like tree !

And a lots of cloud around the Southbank  where Festival Hall, Hayward gallery etc are

situated = It was a festival or a kind of  massive gathering  🙂 —– it seems there are some

performances but most of the people with family or friends are just hanging out there. 🙂

It was a Friday early evening.  So, just have a drink and chat together.

Some set-up for the kids to play = in fact, sandy beach is a familiar set up in the Southbank.

But this time the sand got red and blue too = supposed to be the national color of the flag. 

The festival is a side-show of the Olympic.

So that, there is a Fair Ground and some ride as well. 

When thousands of the people comes, there always the street performers. 

A magician Diobo (photo, center above) showed incredible magic which I was utterly

bemused.  = As it is an open space = there couldn’t be any set-up.  And he was bare-hand =

no sleeve to hide any trick —– still he could move a cigarette and rift it up from the

ground (no invisible string or strong air movement) or make a mouse disappear and

reappear from inside of an egg etc etc = may be usual staff though, what impressed me

was, as I said, its impossibility.  How he could do that ?

Magic Circle must be the last secret Brotherhood.  Iron rule of secrecy and the devotion

to the perfection.  

Among many performers, a Yogi like performer (photo, above right) were sitting without

any movement.  One was perched on top of a stick = looks fascinating though, this is not a

magic = they were just sitting on an iron frame which was hidden in there loose cloths.

And there was the anti-capitalists campaigners as well.

Those wild meadow like flower bed must be created in few days on a shallow soil brought

onto the concrete, and when the event was finished, they will be just thrown into a skip =

a symbol of superficiality of this kind of Green pretense.

Then, I took a bus to go back to my place. 

(Those photos above were taken from inside of the bus)

—– all the photos were taken by Zeiss Planer 85mm F1.4 lens on Canon 5D MkIII = its mean, everything

were manual = hence, due to my eyesight some are not very well focused.  😦

(I didn’t expect to shoot the photos.  Only the 85mm lens was there which I have had brought to show

to my friend  😀 )

[]

N’s Sports Party at Abbey

Newly wed N is a web designer and keen cyclist, traveler and doing Kinetic-sculpture as well. (hence we met many years ago on an art event).   In fact, he had Stag-do in the south coast, doing canoeing etc with his old baddies weeks ago as well.

So, when I arrived to the Abbey, I was greeted by his fancy dancing.    😀

As I was warned, this party was not a kind of eat, drink and catch-up chattering but quite physical.     😀

I don’t know the name of this game, still, there is an almost identical game in Japan but played only by the kids.

Sports party though, it’s still a family occasion, N’s mum and dad and of cause his wife and her sister D were all there enjoying the company.

This game (photo above) said to be called “Sheep stack in the mud ” = may be Japanese equivalent of Oni-gokko”  🙂

On such sporting occasion, photographer shouldn’t be just an observer = gone to more pro-active. (or a bit naughty ? ! = to inflate size D to FF) — no, not me, lens did  😀

Then egg on the spoon race. Though, some confusion of the rules —– spoon on a hand or on the mouth ?

And the Prize giving ceremony = of Gold, Silver or Copper.    😀 

In the same time, yet another activity which was a bit more intellectual research and the interview was carried out by D as she was a student of London Uni’

Yet more Spoon race.  😀

And more common ball game. 

So, the party went on till sunset.  It was a fantastic day and a nice quiet evening.

[]

Waltham Abbey or its Garden

There was a party of the newly married friend in the Waltham Abbey garden.

Waltham Abbey was one of the Abbey destroyed by the King Henry 8th, situated just outside of north London, 15 min’ walk from the Waltham Cross station. 

Or just off the M25 by a car.  —– Despite its close proximity to the Capital, it is almost a forgotten place.   Hence, it was my first visit and I did it for a test of Nikon D810 (with Nikon Fisheye lens and their 85mm F1.8) too.  🙂

The  journey starts from the Railway Cathedral, Liverpool Street Station.

It was just a shot ride though, among a lots of train running on the same track, only few are stopping at Waltham Cross. (on the way back, only one train per hour ! )

Then from the station, walk straight down to the east, while crossing many creeks of River Lee ( —– I remember the image like this in a Belgian city of Bruges ).

Looks like the end of the road, there the Abbey is. —— and near by funeral parlor, a pretty well made model of the horse-drawn hearse !  

3D representation of What you are going to have  😀 

—– And Jesus is waiting for you with open arms !  How nice  😀  😀

The inside is a huge open space.

Other than the Rose garden etc, abbey garden is a sort of controlled wilderness. The grass was well-trimmed corner to corner though, rest was left for the wild plants to compete each other. 

—– still, I haven’t seen even a shadow of single fish in the water.

[]The camera, D810 worked well.  —– Though, go into the details of each point is not what Zen blog supposed to deal with = I’ll do it somewhere else.

—– still, it worthwhile to mention is = this camera might be in the point of no-return, in the aspect of the use of soft control of the imaging = departure from the pure optical image.   For example, professionals may no longer need to use wide-angle lens, instead,  resorting with  stitch-up photo = negates the needs of many specialized lens such as PC or TS lens, or ultra-wide-angle lens, even extremely large F-aperture lenses.  = (In fact, such special lens becoming perpetual [unsold] item in the show window, alongside  the huge dead stock of lenses for clop-sized image sensor camera. = such camera has been superseded by the compact Mirror-less system cameras) = Who want to carry heavy, big camera ?

And, when we can buy incredibly well designed small camera with the same money, who would buy expensive big old zoom lens ?  —–  Camera companies shot their own leg.

* Canon’s selection to use APS size sensor in their mirror-less camera, and selling EF lens adapter is to prevent their EF-S lens become obsolete and dead stock.  🙂

* Nikon’s 36Mp sensor may give higher resolution though, I found no difference on my same laptop screen.  = Any how the quality of  the image was limited to the optical quality of the lens = screen image shows the flaw of the lens even more.

And the Nikon’s heavy use of image processing program would make aware of thephotographers that [it is not the matter of the number of the pixels, but the after process].

Nikon seemed to be using variable gain control to amplify the out-put of image sensor = effectively act like a variable ISO setting and with the enhanced color-saturation of the image under dim light = the result looks brilliant.  = save the work on photoshop though —– I’m not sure, was that a correct approach to include the “Fan shot effects”  😀

[]

Gig on the Ship / Stubnitz

The Ship Stubnitz is a German Art Venue on the sea (on this moment

at King George V Dock  🙂 )  And when they arrived to the Dockland, they asked

OWN (Open Wireless Network of SPC.org) to connect to the Internet.  Then, 5Ghz Wifi

connection was made between the antenna mounted on the ship’s mast to a node in

Deptford,  4 miles (6.5 km) away.  —–  And we were invited to their Gig on the Ship.

When only the weather is fine, it’s nice to be on the ship, you know  😀

And the day was that kind of nice day = (I have a good luck of fine day, when ever  :-))

The Ship, Stubnitz used to be an East German troweler fishing boat,  and when she was

decommissioned, she was converted to a floating art venue 20 years ago.

Being as a German Ship, operated by the German = don’t expect any fancy food  😀

It was their traditional Bokwurst (common sausage) Hot-dog.   (fit to Human consumption :-D)

And the music were pretty cool Jazz Quartet, and then,  German Punk ! 

In fact, it was pretty impressive !  

Punk despise to be serious though, German Punk IS SERIOUS, so serious to be a Punk  !

In the eyes of Zennist, this serious dedication = [Oneness] seemed to be the Zen.

Unfortunately, Dockland area is huge = just walk back to the nearest DLR (Dockland Light

Railway) station took more than 20 min’ still, it wasn’t a bad walk under the moon 😀

Remote corner of London night street doesn’t mean to have robber, mugger or rapist.

(They knows where to look for rich pickings.  Ha ha ha  😀 )

[]

Ship in a Dock / Stubnitz

I went a Ship moored in the King George V Dock with my friends.

In fact, to see (and hear  🙂 ) a gig performed by German Jazz, and Punk Rock band.

I went there with my Canon 5D Mk2 with only 8-15 Fisheye Zoom since

the other lens is a bit too big and heavy  😀

(Though, some of the picture, the auto-focus was failed)

And some of the photos were taken using LED Ring Light)

[]

Olympic Opening

The evening before, I asked my neighbor “ Are you going to watch Olympic Opening ?”

as he got fancy satellite receiver and big screen TV.  He said, “may be, but shall we go to a pub to

see it in their big screen”. —– So, we went to a pub round the corner.

This is the first time to go into this pub since I moved to this area 11 years ago.

(As I don’t drink alcohol I rarely go to a pub, except a meeting took place in a pub).

The TV was there though, nobody was watching.  The next day’s news said nearly 27 million

people did watch the Opening program = out of 65 million in the UK = it was far less

than half of the population ! = this is the first fraud, the government and the media

have to juggle 😀  (Instead to say 40%,  27 million sound a lot to the most of the people’s brain)

So-called Democracy is based on the support of the majority = popular support

= populism.  While forcing austere measure to the people, still spending £9.5 billion =

In order to justify its spending,  government had to create an impression

“ Everybody excited and support the Olympic”.

In this populism concept, this Olympic Opening must be the most Politically

loaded and choreographed event in the recent history. (Of cause I don’t know all

the details of another Opening of such as Beijing, Soul, etc —– yet still, most others seemed

to demonstrates the power of the Nation = Government and Military. (such as exactly

synchronized mass demonstration of Martial-art play, performed by the soldiers,

and the mass game of the top beauties gathered from all over the country, kind).

Instead, London Olympic Opening avoided to go this kind, while pretending

GREEN and Politically Correct. = Hence, the people appeared there got to be looks like

just a man or girl next-door, and especially from ethnic minority.

[]

In this Political Correctness, there was no single Hero to light-up the

Olympic-Flame, but by the group of athletes. —– And the Flame-burner, its

head was a Copper piece brought by each country. (A girl or boy walking with Flag-bearer was

carrying looks like urinal shaped metal piece = it was for this purpose  😀 )

(In certain extent, I think it was a brilliant idea ! = Forget PC blah blah, here 😀 )

—– PS: My friend found the Info’ of the Olympic Flame in this link  —–

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/comment/the-flaming-dandelion/5040489.article#.UBaj-FBTs30.facebook

—– As the Info’ says, the Olympic Flame was built in 10 story mechanism, having more than 200 stems in

8.5m long = it can not be made with rotating shafts but be done only with linear air actuators (like a piston

cylinder to push-up) = still, more than 200 gas pipes, 10 pressurized air pipes crammed into small space,

and they  moves, while carrying combustible gas = what a task !  —– still,  I was surprised to know, it got

16 tons all together ! ? ? ?  —– couldn’t be done in 4 tones size ?

[]

Yet Populism has to have popular figure = David Beckham, Mr. Bean and James Bond may not

have an argument from the mass audience (along side the inventor of WWW = though how many

people knew his name, and the author of Harry Potter’s ).

And draw the Queen out of her holy residents and made her jump from a chopper

(in fact a stunt-man with Queen’s costume and her mask over his face, doubled her) must be

an Extreme-left-wing  Anarchist’s dream.

Still, it had made only eye-catching stories of the tabloid paper = not fool the population for whole. 

= The unsold empty seats are the evidence. (May needs the same measure of Beijing Olympic to

mobilize local school kids to fill the seats to COVER-UP).

[]

What-so-ever the COVER-UP story of this country’s history, the fundamental structure were

never touched. = Land owing system, hence the concentration of the wealth.

= Queen as the top landlord, and its status-quo of the Class-system.

Let Tory and Labor fight each other, is the traditional [Divide and Rule] tactics

of the Empire.  Top of the Government = Prime Minister is just a hired manager of the estate

= let him manage the people to keep status-quo in good order, while work hard to produce

enough revenue to run the estate.

If any left-wing dissident became a prominent figure, make him (or her) Sir

(like Bono 😀 ) and integrate into the Imperial SYSTEM.

(like the former director of Liberty, John Wadam is now a part of the establishment, and the

another member of Liberty, Shamira Chakrabarty was carrying the Olympic-flag.   😀

= Honor cost nothing still, the most powerful tool to coax the noisy dissident).

[]

Organizer might have thought that the approach of Politically correct Populism can give an

illusion of Democracy though, in contrary, it highlighted the deception more. = This irony is

exposed also in the history of the Industrial Revolution = “Where the industry started in this

country has gone ?” —– And the same was repeated again = the WWW was  invented by

Tim Bernard-Lee though, “Where the Industry using WWW, such as Google has gone to ?”

So, it was not the display of the Glorious Briton, but more of the sawer grape of own failures.

[]

——- So, it was an interesting program or political farce to watch. 😀

[]

HUMAN CIRCUS (of Piccadilly, LONDON)

— ( To take this picture, I’ve jumped onto tarmac, click, jump-back before hit by them —– focus was

—- wrong, and having camera shake as well. Never mind, you can see the atmosphere  😀 ) )

To pick-up a Japanese visitor, I went to the Piccadilly Circus. —– like a tourist. 😀

I don’t remember when I did the same, how many years ago ? ? ?

As it is the most famous place in England, and the Olympic is coming too, there are lots of tourists

and they are enjoying a rare opportunity to have a sun. (UK having too much rain in this year =

Japan, China had too = seemingly the Global freak weather.)

—– nearly 40 years ago I was one of them.   But not as noisy as them today.   😀

I don’t think those photos needs any explanation. = So, I leave them without it.  😀

M m m m  😀

[]

Thought over LIGHT (and its visual effects)

You may feel strange though, there is no black and White

image in the Nature.  🙂

May be Monochrome image yes. = Pure B/W image is, in fact human

invention, in other words, it exists only in the brain, or a product of

the brain. = Simply because, there is no [no-colored light] exists =

all the light, even if it looks WHITE, it is just well balanced

mixture of the colors.

[]

So-called Color was created by the vibration of the Photon =

if you divide the distance of a Photon travels in a second in its

literally the speed of Light, by its number of frequency of the vibration = you get the wave-length.

The light-sensitive cells in our Retina called Corn cells (named from its shape) having the colored

pigment which selectively absorbe and stimulated by the particular wave-length, emits the nerve-

signal to the brain. = Hence the brain interpret those different signal created by each different light

as each different color. —– So that, when those Corn cells sending-out all the color signal evenly =

our brain think it is white and if they are less intensive than the white, the brain think it is gray.

But when the light level is very low = in the dark, the Corn cells couldn’t work well.  Instead, only

the Rod cells which doesn’t have color sensitivity, works. = hence, the visual image which lack the

color information were created in the brain = we feel (some what) B/W image. —– ghostly night

scene of grave-yard was conceived like a bluish B/W image = simply because, only the available

light source came from the stars (provided no Cine-light, or Torch-lamp there) = hence,

the Dracula film is the best in B/W = (it is closer to what actually we have seen) 😀

[]

As long as there is lots of light which is having all the spectrum of the light, we see

white as white and able to see a colored objects as its own color without color-shift.

Therefore, mirrors in the dressing room of a theater back-stage having many light valves fitted

around. = natural Ring light effect. = no shadow and no color-shift = it is essential for the make-up.

(still, even a white under tungsten-light is shifted to much warmer color of about 3000k)

—– yet still, it is often the case, the white is determined by its relative brightness.

Our eyes were adjusted to see the over all brightness or by the brightest object while varying the

size of the pupil.  And among the objects, see the brightest and relatively having all the spectrum

of the light as the white. = Hence, seemingly the yellow sun is so bright, we feel it is white in the sky.

In fact, all the photographers know, even a dark colored object will become

washed off white if it was over-exposed 5~7 stops more.

[]

In the natural environment, we are not necessary seeing the surroundings with ideal neutral light.

= not only the color-contribution of the light-source (such as Florescent light has Green cast due

to the Mercury atom) , but also the light was colored by the reflection of other object nearby.

—– May be it is the reason why we feel nicely lit image in a photo = too artificial.

While using color-corrected artificial light (Xenon discharge Solar-Light kind) or Studio-type flash

light, which is giving 5500K color temperature.   The more photographer worked to make every

corner in the scene within 2 stops of exposure difference, it become even more unnatural.

[]

=== So that, in this occasion, as I’m dealing with LED Ring Light, I’m experimenting

“How to design Non-ideal light source to create natural looking image”

= to make Colored Ring Light. 😀

(I’m going to show its result soon)

[]

PS :  If you’d like to experiment with LEDs, and try to connect different type of them parallel,

you need to connect a register to each types.   Such as; 

[3~4 Batteries (4.5V~6V) +] —> [100 ohm Register]—> [Blue or White LEDs]—>[Battery – ]

[ ———————– same  +] —> [100 ohm Register] —> [Red LEDs] —–> [same Battery – ]

[ ———————– same +] —> [100 ohm Register] —> [Green LEDs] —> [same Battery – ]

( Those Registers are to limit the current to the LEDs = may need change to such as 47 ohm =

If you connect 10 LEDs parallel, which needs 30mA, x10 of them mean, you need 300mA)

(Exact value is [Supply Voltage – Forward Voltage of LED / Resistance = Current  —– where,

Forward Voltage of Blue or White LED is 3.5V,  Red is 2V, Green or Amber are 2.5V ===

6 – 3.5 / 10o = 0.025 = 25mA  ——- As long as the Current is 50~20mA each, it would be OK)

[]

Make LED Ring Light (2)

While staying in my place to do some MAKE activity, still I couldn’t be house bound.

I needed to have an eye-test to make eye-glasses. (They said, it takes full one week to make it

—- Joking ! ) and I had to take my smashed camera to Canon = it was a long journey 😀

[]

So, I’ve been making yet another LED Ring light. This one is for 24-70mm F2.8 Lens.

I’ve shown those photos before.  A fish-tin which got right diameter has been cut and its bottom

has been cut to take 77mm filter screw (by which, it would be fixed on front of the lens.)

A Chinese room ornament which got color-changing LED light has been chosen to

make this Ring light’s outer housing. —> So, it was cut to fit fish-tin inside.

And two were Epoxy glued together. (photo middle)

And a Phenol Plastic board with copper-foil has been cut to fit inside of the housing —>

then the LEDs will be mounted to this ring. (photo right) === all those cuttings were done by

a half-round file = primitive and simple work though, it was a typical  Zen practice =

make the hand almost like a machine = no-mind (Mushin) = tool’s movement exactly match the

character / hardness of the material = Hand, Tool, Material are all in one rule = Ichijo (oneness).

To fix the Ring light on front of the Lens, instead of using its Lens-hood fixing bayonet (such as

I did on the previous Ring light for 100mm Macro Lens) was because of this lens front extends

when the Zoom was set to wide-angle (photo middle) = If the Ring light was fixed on the bayonet,

when it was zoomed to wide angle, the extended lens front would block the light in the middle.

—– And this (photo right) is the (almost) finished product.

Almost mean, I’m thinking to put power or intensity control etc.

[]

This LED Ring light draw 700mA current from 4xAA, N-MH Rechargeable battery

(fully charged 2500mAH battery would last more than 3 hours) through 2.2 ohm register.

= It’s mean, this Ring light has nearly 3W power = With ISO 400, and 3m distance,

the exposure would be F4 and 1/15^th Second (for average subjects).

—– not too bad for a product which cost only few pounds. (without the cost of LEDs which I got

free from another equipment —– I think 30 or so LEDs wouldn’t cost more than £10 to buy).

[]

Through those “Make LED Light” posts, you might be realized,

how easy to make something and it would cost so little.

On top of it, you might be amazed, how anything could be utilized from fish-tin to card-board paper.

= Just remove an idiosyncratic idea and open your eyes = anything can be done by your

hand and to be creative. (Though, never expect to succeed in the first attempt = to fail first is our

nature, still we have to start from there)  😀

Be courageous. —– And Just Do It.   It would be a fun = I’ll guaranty you.

(Zen is not requisite element to make a thing.  Though, while making it, you may learn it.  🙂 )

[]