Meadow Flower taken by Homemade Lens

This flower meadow was suddenly created in the past 2 weeks.  

It was a green patch between the buildings of the council housing estate.

Two weeks ago, somebody made a bald patch on the grass, — then after few

rains, it became a flower meadow. = Packaged Instant Meadow !

From this meadow, my regular diet of fuzzy photo was made — but this time,

I used a Home made lens which is a Retro-focus type,  2 element lens.

Sound a bit ostentatious though, in short, as the main convex lens had a little 

short focal length,  I put another concave lens to extend its back-focus, hence

it became a Retro-focus type. —– (Main convex lens came from a toy and the

Front concave lens was my broken short-eye-sighted glass.)

 This photo was a comparison.  = taken by the same

Wide-angle Double-density Pinhole lens, I’ve been using.

Note : Regardless the distance, Pinhole never posses a core of sharp image.

And rather blueish color cast, because not much glass lens there to block 

the UV.  —– (It’s a Pinhole ! )

 For this Double-element lens,  I improvised an “inter-changeable F-aperture” to

reduce a halation by stopping down.    (Sound heavy “F-aperture” though, it was

just a hole on a black tape to stick on the back of the lens.   🙂  ) 

——– (Photo above : The clear samples of Iris (F-aperture) Effect =

——– Left = Fully open / 10 mm.  Center Photo = 6 mm.  Right Photo = 3 mm.

Despite the utter humble origin, amazingly this lens has certain image quality.

And those pink flower having rain drops on it —– just able to see !

So, the image was Soft and Fuzzy, because of too much Coma- aberration

still, they are retaining certain sharp image in the center.   😀

This is a part enlargement of the photo above —– Not too bad.  I like it.

(Can you see the water droplets on the petals ! )

And able to give enough fun !

I have no idea, what those flowers called.

Still, I like this glowing color ! — not the Sun, but like a kindling fire in the ash.

[]

PS :  May be much of your annoyance,  this is it !   = THE home made Lens.

Photo Right shows “F-aperture” ! = Hole in a Black sticky tape.  😀

= To clack a nut of creativity, it doesn’t need to be ostentatiously heavy 

Lens, even though the Camera happen to be expensive.

= Typical case was, just smear the Lens with sliver to soften the image.

Heavy pretense blocks the flow of the idea. = Anything can be done.

Matter is Just Do and discover a FUN.

[]

Orange Peel

You may not guess what I’m going to talk about.   The photo here is Orange Peels.

Orange Peel (of its powder) has been used as a flavoring spice or even a 

Chinese herbal medicine. (= moderate stimulant to the stomach )

—– But I’m not going to use it in any form but I’m going to get lid of them.

Though, if you throw them into a rubbish bin in the kitchen, together with

carrot skin etc etc,  inevitably you’ll have a rotten wet bottom in the bin where

Fruits Fly thrives.  — Still, try to fight against them is the futile, impossible task.

A bin with lid didn’t work = they get inside when it was open = and lay eggs =

then come back in hundreds.   You can’t catch, you can’t hit = they fly so quick.

Throw a rubbish every day is the one  answer.  (Sounds quite paranoia isn’t it ?) 

And make them composted in a jar with tight lid, is the another answer,

though, when I tried, I realized that I don’t have a garden to use the compost. 

Anyhow, my rubbish for 2 weeks is not more than a super-market plastic bag.  

—– On the end, I got the answer = wet rubbish IS the root cause of trouble.

= Why not dry them ! = If no wet rubbish, no Fruits Fly would come, hence

= no trouble, no fight. —– isn’t this the Buddhist’s like answer !   🙂

(Same as, “No alcohol, no trouble. No woman, no trouble” kind of approach  !  

Save the joke of Mahayana Buddhism “Having trouble IS the Enlightenment”

though, Fruits Fly has no fun at all.)   😀

= So, I leave the Orange peel,  Vegetable skin etc to spread on the plastic tray

and let them dry. (Looks strange though, nobody would see it anyway.)  

—– When they are dry, put them into the bin.  

[]

Just a little bit more attention, then able to have a peaceful life !

Isn’t this a Zen ?  —– or do you think it’s a nuts or paranoid ?  

Ha ha ha ha  😀 —– Have a nice Friday 13th, and a fun-full weekend.

[]

 

 

 

Cherry

One of the most popular tree of Cherry, they got hundred of species and may 

be thousand of garden varieties.    So that, all of their flowers look more or less

the same though, when it came to the fruits, they are amazingly different.  =

Not only the sizes or color —– but only a thing it would be certain, is, the most

of them are not nice to eat at all.   Only an exception I ever encountered was,  

the Cherry trees standing on the road side outskirt of  Wurzburg in Germany.

(Though, I wouldn’t guaranty  you to find the same street and the tree.  😀 )

That cherry was the same kind sold in the shop, the dark colored one.

I guess, the local council just planted the same variety for Cherry fruits.

(But I don’t know how their flowers looks like. )

[]

Many years ago, once European farmers tried to export their cherries to

Japan though, non was sold.  To the Japanese, Cherry got to have the color

like the one in the top photo and of cause the sweetness with subtle acidity.

So, this Cherry got the right color, the size was somewhat a half of “Salable”

standard in Japan but this one got awful bitter taste.

[]

Strangely you may think, not so many fruits yelling Cherry in Japan.  

There are hundreds of different Cherries there though, most of the tree

commonly planted there were the variety called  Somei-yoshino, which

was created  in a Somei village somewhere north of Edo (now called Tokyo).

Since it was a specially created hybrid, this Somei-yoshino is infertile ; ie

there is no cherry fruit !  = No seed.   And all the Somei-yoshino in the world

were propagated from single tree by means of grafting = one by one by hand. 

Therefore, thousands cherry trees planted on the bank of Potomac river

Washington, US were all created in the same manner and genetically

they are all identical clones.

[]

What makes this Somei-yoshino so special was,  when flower is open, there is

no leaves  and when the flower finished, each flower petals falls like a snow.

= Symbolizing the Ethos of Samurai.   The beauty in the death.    ! ! !

[]

Tilting Macro Bellows

This is a photo of a hand made close-up accessory = Tilting Bellows, I made when

I was first year in my Uni’  and it was featured in a Japanese photo-magazine.  

On that time, I didn’t have proper Macro lens — I had Nikon F Photomic,  

24 mm F2.8  and 50 mm F2  that’s all.    And for the special close-up photo 

of the plant, I was using modified Mamiya Press (6×9 format).  

I made this mini bellows for use with 50 mm f2 lens and this combination

gave  1/5  to life size close-up.  —– Without doubt,  this must be the most 

rudimental, and cheap bellows ever designed !  

(You may see the extreme minimal way of the thinking in this design !) 

 = Lens rear cap was mounted on a L-shaped small aluminium panel and

 it was connected to a body cap with a kind of bellows made out of a plastic

sheet (it was a dark curtain).   Lens panel and the camera body were both

 mounted on a straight  camera bracket by means of  1/4″ screws  which 

allow the lens to be held up to 50 mm away from the body, and the front

panel (hence the lens) could be held in angle to the body, therefore 

tilting effect could be easily used as a focus control as well !

I’m certain I got the original somewhere though,  to use it with Canon EOS 5D,

the height of the lens is not the same and to use it with Nikon D810 would be

too awkward ( because of their setting of Non-CPU lens. )  —>  I decided to

make the same for  5D, but use with Nikon lens —– Nikon lens has manual

F-aperture ring and the flange-back is 1.5 mm longer than Canon. )  

Photos above shows the making process.  (I used the lens rear-cap again. )

Then, to make a bellows, this time I found a black leather in a flea-market.

—– Still, bag-bellows has to be designed and stitched in rather awkward way

though, it can be done anyway = only needs stitch, — by stitch.  😀

So, this is the finished product. (Though, I’m going to change the

body mount ring to black aluminium one.)  

Still, what all those works for,  was remained to be seen with the resulting photo.

This is the sample of the tilting effects. (55 mm Micro Nikkor,  20 degree tilt)

(Top photo shows Pan-focus effect.   Bottom photo is its reverse effect.)

If the junk material was available, the cost to make like this would be

as little as £5 if not nil.  🙂

———-

PS:   Good additional reading = [Shallow Focus — Pan-focus]

[]

 

Wash Grapes

Grape is one of the most ancient fruits recorded in the human history 

though, as it is the cousin of Ivy,  I guess,  in the ancient time its

fruits must be as small as Ivy’s berry.   (about 1/4″ — 6 mm big ?)

Any how, the matter here is not a big (or small) issue at all = the way to serve.

—– In my bad boy’s habit,  there is nothing but a pleasure to steal a fruits.

(Fortunately or unfortunately I didn’t grown up to acquire the pleasure to

steal a woman.   😀  —– before read such menu available

I’ve become a monk (?)  —– how shame,  what a boring life isn’t it ! )

[]

To pick  and eat a fruit in the (Somebody else’s) garden, I wouldn’t be bothered

to wash it while presuming that the dirt has been washed away by the rain, and

no human hand ever touched it anyway. 

Though, when I bought it from a shop, I suspect it has been handled rather

dusty condition hence they are not clean. —– So, how to wash it ?

Long before,  I was washing the bunch of grapes under a jet of water then later

changed to wash each individual fruits —– I mean one by one,  since when

I noticed some time, some of them were covered with quite stubborn film of dirt.

( Remember, we eat grapes with its skin !  —– Japanese grapes can be skinned !  )

And these days,  I separate each fruit from a bunch and wash them in a plastic

bawl under the running water while make them well rubbing each other.

[]

Considering the amount of dust we are inhaling and eating, which may consists

sand or dried soil, even dried dog shit etc etc, without  knowing,  some dirt on

the occasional grapes wouldn’t make any concern.  —– So,  is this a matter of

principal or most likely the personality ? —– A kind of contemplation such as

“Resisting the dirt would be useless” may have an effect still,  the sense of 

cleanliness came from one’s up-bringing, and IS the one’s second nature.

[]

So, as a practice, how about the point of  so-called “Mindfulness” or “Middle way”

= how can we be “single-minded” and in the same time “be tolerant”.

(Is it a funny question ? )

If you think this is a funny question,  your understanding of Buddhism was wrong.

Wrong in the “Thinking” of  both  “Mindfulness” and the ” Middle way”.

[]

We don’t need to think about how to wash or how to eat grapes.   We should just Do.

= Wash or not wash what so ever you Do, IS a reflection of WHO YOU ARE.   As you

are born to be under the own Karma,  to follow it,  is the most natural way to live.  

And to be natural, need no thinking = just to be the own.  

No thinking or no conscious mean no Self is there.  And no Self,  no conscious mean

no intentional thinking NOR being not natural,  hence no over doing = Middle way.  

Without the Self, still able to do what necessary to Do, IS the Mindful way.

In fact, all the teachings of Buddhism are [ To be done without conscious ].

= Live without a conscious of Self IS Selfless.  Do without thinking IS Mushin.

When you Do the thing, there are no other things in the mind IS Mindfulness.

And when you Do,  no intentional thinking is there, therefore

Do only naturally you need to Do,  IS  Middle way.

If you are Doing something special to be a Buddhist,  IS not Buddhism.

[ Buddhism is Do nothing special, Think nothing as Thinking.

This IS why, Buddhism mean the VOID.  —– And this was what

Lord Buddha taught though, it was not fully understood by even

the author of scripture. ]

___/\___ 

[] 

Mono Hole – DD Pinhole Comparison

Another day, I demonstrated the effects of the Pinhole to a sceptic in a Park.

So, the Photo above is the reference shot by a Fish-eye lens.

Photo above are the images made by [Wide-angle Mono Pinhole] (Left)

and the Pinhole alone (= Wide-angle lens was removed) (Right)

And here, the Photos were made by [Concentric Double-density Pinhole]

with Wide-angle lens attached (Left) and without (Right)

A Fish-eye image of  “Pink Forget-me-not” (I think) — note,

even Fish-eye lens has limited depth of field.

Left was [Wide-angle Mono (single) Pinhole] (Orange cast was caused

by a light-leak.)  Right was [Wide-angle DD-Pinhole]

Left = Wide-angle Mono-Pinhole.  Right = Pinhole alone and close to the flowers.

(Remember, Pinhole has no focus —– even no view-finder image = too dark.  

Therefore all those photos were the blind-shots)

Left = Wide-angle DD-Pinhole.  

Right = Pinhole alone and close to the flowers. (The line in the left side

was caused by an internal reflection.)

[]

At least, my friend was convinced that the effect was not by a digital

manipulation though still sceptic about the significance of the image.  

That’s a matter of the taste Sir.  😀

[]

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.  🙂  🙂

[]

Self-sacrifice — is it same to Selfless ? ? ?

Time to time, a search-term “Self-sacrifice” came to here. = It seems, the Self

is the main issue of Buddhism, Self-sacrifice and Self-denial is always taking

quite an attention.    And in deed I myself talked about this in the past.

= I wrote that to reach Zen or Buddhism understanding, it is necessary to

have a self-denial or a self-sacrifice in a certain stage of

the pathway to see who the own Self is.

Though, the Aim of Buddhism is not “Wrestling with the SELF”= try to

eliminate and struggle.   But Being Buddhist is simply being selfless,

since the Self is not exists in the first place.

[]

—– You might be confused. This is the same situation like a “Disease”

= say XYZ syndrome. People may talk about what that syndrome is,

how to treat or eradicate it.   Though the teaching of

Lord Buddha didn’t mention the existence of such disease.  Such disease exists

only in one’s mind = NOT exist mean no point to know about alleged symptom,

let alone how to deny or eradicate it. = In other words, to think Self-denial or

Self-sacrifice as if it was the essence of Buddhism is, utterly a misunderstanding

= Here is a man trying to find and use a fire-extinguisher —– shame, there

wasn’t a fire, he only thought it was.

Don’t mix-up “to know, Fire is not exists” with extinguish a Fire.

Deny the Self is not close or same to the Selfless. Deny mean, the Self has been

 defined  and confirmed of its existence !  = Wrong direction to start.

[]

In our daily life, fundamentally there isn’t a conscious of Self,

hence things were done Selflessly.

So that, while reading this blog, have you been aware that your eyes are tracing 

the line, not mention that YOU ARE reading this.   YOU are in deed, doing all those

unconsciously. = Since you were alerted, now you became conscious of YOU.

Otherwise you didn’t need to become conscious of yourself to read this — in fact to

do anything or to live.   Ironically, human got over-sized brain and so-called Mind,

even worse got Selfish Ego and Greed kind.   When ever you were alerted and

became conscious about your “right” or “gain or loss” this kind of “Mind” often gave

us the interruption — “Hey, it’s a chance” or “Don’t loose” kind.   🙂

Lord Buddha found that this “Imaginary products” is the cause of all the troubles

even though, we can have a life without it.    And found that the idea of SELF, the

generator of all those Mind is the root cause, despite it is nothing but an illusion.

So, he taught to have “Clear eyes and the Mind” to distinguish the illusion or delusion

and the Truth. —– Yet still, we poor human tend to cling own Self and accompanying

sense of Self-loving Emotion, so that, when we do something for ourselves, we can not

handle it in the detached clear eyes and the mind.   The emotion which bound

the integration of Self is always there.

[]

In contrast, when we needed to do something for somebody else, not all of us are

very keen = We just do it as an extra task = often with quite detached mind, no

pleasure, even no Self conviction there.

(Let the hands do the work. The mind is somewhere else. 🙂 )

You can see that to do something for others, we do it detached, Selfless manner.

When you do, you do it dispassionate as it was seen objectively in quite rational

manner. = Because, it belong to the others, there is no attachment, still has to do

the job, job would be handled dispassionately as a given task. —– this situation

can be seen as the Self-sacrifice. And the dispassionate detached mind was

mixed-up with the selflessness.

= This was how and why the misinterpretation has occurred.

—– Self-denial or Self-sacrifice is not an idea of Buddhism.   Still, if there was a

situation to DO, real Buddhist would just DO without any question, since

there was no Self, therefore no wrangling Mind but the Karma put him to DO.

Though, by the eyes of others, it could be seen as if it was a self-sacrifice because

of it was not his own needs, and it was interpreted that he was forced to obey the

situation while denying his own will, himself.

[]

But, to see “Do something to others” only in the view of Self-denial or Self-sacrifice

is in deed the most Un-Buddhist like view.

It is nothing but an Egotistic, stingy, small “mind”.  —– Do something could be

a good exercise, do somebody’s work could be new experience — etc etc.

Don’t waste the time clinging with useless mind.      Just DO.

___/\___

[]

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.  

[]

Mind-set of the Medallist

Now the news from Sochi Winter Olympic is the regular feature in the media.

So, naturally I read quite number of the words from the Medallists “How he

(or she) came to this point”. Such as the one from the first Gold Medallist

of Japan, Yuzuru Hanyu (羽生結弦) the Figure Skater.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoqHZH6KE1c

—– (Unfortunately I couldn’t find a proper video from Sochi in Youtube =

most of them are either old clips or the clip only using his name with

crap contents. = this one from last year’s competition.)

Yuzuru grown up in Sendai, Japan the place received that earthquake and

tsunami few years ago. So, even he had a part of the same fate, couldn’t

practice for 6 months, as a local ice-rink was destroyed, on top of all sorts

of life’s ups and downs. —– still, in his word on an interview, he said

“On the end I came to the point to realize that I couldn’t be anybody

more than myself or anybody less than myself, and understood, there

couldn’t be anything else but to go the life to be a skater.”

= No pretence of special pride carrying the top name or the feeling carrying

the duty to the country.   (Yet still, when he won, he carried Japanese Flag

on his shoulder. = He was thank-full to the people who supported him

back in Japan. —– He was a nice 19 years old boy !)

[]

This is in fact quite common feeling among the athletes who became

top medallist. = Non boasted the words like “I came to the Olympic to win

for my country”—– but “Just did my best and it happened to be an Olympic”.

[]

It is a common misconception = “To achieve such highest goal, it must need

to have highest concentration of the Will and the strong Mindset”.

—– strangely you might think, the stronger the will or higher the aim or

desire kind, it fails to achieve the goal. —– We human was not designed to

withstand to maintain such hard will, and our fate is not providing plain

sailing. = The higher the aim, the stronger the disappointment when the ship

hit an obstacle, then the person brake down.

[]

Athletes compete physical game though, it is in fact a very heavy mental game.

Minute fear or negative doubt would hinder the moment of judgement.

After thousands, tens of thousands of practices, the body got accustomed to

perform routine = let the body to perform.  = No “Will, Aim, Pride, Pretence,

Desire, Show-off, Sense of Obligation, Duty, Fear, Doubt, Arrogance or Shame”

= in other words ANY MIND was not required here.  = Just Do it.

Any how, in the moment when the athlete is competing, there couldn’t be

a margin to haggle any thought.

—– ? ? ? —– Don’t you think it’s sound familiar ?

Yes. This is exactly the same mental state to Mushin and Ichijo of the Zen.

Or, the Selflessness of the Buddhism. —– are they Buddhist ?  Not necessary.

[]

Lord Buddha’s teachings = Buddhism, was the wisdom learned from the

human nature, and been applied to the general aspects of the life.

Wisdom in the human nature which was prevailed in the process of extreme

practice was in fact the wisdom held by the universe = Rules of the Universe,

which is in the Buddhist’s term Dharma.

[]

And the contemplation those athletes has gained, is nothing but

their Enlightenment = Being nobody else of the Self, who is in fact Selfless.

= This selflessness is in deed, the Dharma.

___/\___

[]