WW Party on the Boat

WW gathering (some says, it is Wireless Workshop, others say Wednesday Workshop or Wireless Wednesday ? ? ? = since it started as a group hacking into 2.4 GHz Wireless Data link) had a party in a Pub in the Westminster, and to go there we took a boat on the Thames river.

So, from Greenwich Pier we took a boat TRS (Thames River Service).    It was still 4:30 though, it was already after sunset = night voyage.    How fancy !

And we arrived to the Westminster = its mean the foot of Big-ben.

After that, not much to show.  😀

By the way, a white dot on the right end was the Super full moon ! —– though don’t ask any better picture.  The lens was a junk (£5) Canon EFS 18~55 lens on Sony A7 camera — ( it’s mean no F-aperture control = fully open.)   And the shake of the images were not because of the moving ship or I was drunk,  I purposely made them for a sake of the art = believe me.     He he he.    😀

.

Robot with Leiz (?) Lens

Among my camera collection, the most peculiar one must be this Robot camera with a Leiz Xenon lens.  Leiz lens though, it was made by the Taylor Hobson.  Taylor Hobson is a British optical, precise engineering company, so why British lens was sold as Leiz Xenon Lens may have interesting story. (You may find.)  And the lens was made for Leica camera and further modified to fit this Robot camera.

  The name Robot came from its spring driven automatic shooting mechanism.  And this particular model has double length of the spring which enable the whole 50 shots in one charge of the spring.  I think this camera was designed to be used on the scientific or military front in mind.  = such as that the camera was mounted on top of a microscope or under a wing of a spying aircraft where the shutter was triggered by a remote cable.

The camera was very well designed and solidly made (= heavy).  Film was loaded to the double cassett of which the film slit will be opened for a smooth winding of the film when the back cover was closed.  36 exposure film (about 1.5 m long) can have 50 shots with its square (24 x 24) format.

80, 90 years ago, 50 mm lens with F1.5 was an exceptionally bright lens and as its optical design was protected by the Taylor Hobson, no way else, Leiz needed to buy it from them. 

Leica lens can be easily used on the Sony A7 camera with a simple and cheap (about £5) adapter. (Photo left)

There are funny mix of the British-German conflict.  The distance scale was in imperial = feet, and it goes down to the closest distance 3.5 feet.

On the test shot on A7 camera showed quite sharp image = it convinced me, that the military reconnoissance people desperately wanted this lens on a Robot !

On the photo above left, about 70% to the right, you may see faint red spot, and that part was enlarged on the right photo.

And the same shooting of the same dried Rose on 3.5 feet distance. = photo middle was F1.5 fully open and the right was F6.3. —– Whether the softness on F1.5 was caused by the aberration or internal reflection (ghost) was questionable.   Still, somewhat common with the Zeiss lens’ softness isn’t too bad.  And I’m quite happy with it.   🙂

.

Dorkbot Xmas Gathering

The word Xmas may be misleading, since a kind of techno people / Dork seems to have nothing to do with a religion. Nevertheless, they had a gathering last night.

London/SE “people doing strange things with electricity…” since 2001:
When:  19:30-22:30, Thu Dec 8 2016
Where: The Boxing Club, Limehouse Town Hall, 646 Commercial Road, E14 7HA
(directions below)

Free entry, no registration required
Talks start 7.30pm, doors open from 6.45pm…

Don’t forget – you can also follow us on Twitter:
http://dorkbotlondon.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c64ae7bbb8eb1249be8ca8fa6&id=ea282147e5&e=0c7441a498
See who’s coming via the Facebook event:
http://dorkbotlondon.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c64ae7bbb8eb1249be8ca8fa6&id=2d313544d5&e=0c7441a498

With speakers including – but not restricted to…

==== Hadeel Ayoub ====
twitter: @HadeelAyoub
http://dorkbotlondon.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c64ae7bbb8eb1249be8ca8fa6&id=b961a31fba&e=0c7441a498
Hadeel has developed a “smart glove” that translates sign language
from hand gestures
to visual text on a screen and audible dialogue. She’s now working on
an app to enable
real-time translation of the text into other languages.

==== James Larsson ====
twitter: @JamesLarsson
http://dorkbotlondon.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c64ae7bbb8eb1249be8ca8fa6&id=388f08ed24&e=0c7441a498
The inventor, techno-humorist and Dorkbot London regular returns to
launch his all-new
“Flashing Light Prize”.

==== Laura Dekker ====
twitter: @LauraDekker_io
http://dorkbotlondon.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c64ae7bbb8eb1249be8ca8fa6&id=d17cc3de89&e=0c7441a498
Laura’s installation, “Some Small Robots Perform Recent News Media
Output Concerning AI”, can be seen in the “Technology is not neutral”
touring exhibition at Watermans Arts Centre until 8th Jan 2017.

==== Dr Kate Devlin ====
twitter: @drkatedevlin/
http://dorkbotlondon.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c64ae7bbb8eb1249be8ca8fa6&id=a5d9b5721d&e=0c7441a498
For mature audiences: Dr Devlin is organising this December’s Love and
Sex with Robots conference in London to bring together academics,
industry professionals and anyone else interested in sex robots.

==== Open dorks/demos: ====
Fresh from this year’s “CruftFest”:
Jon Pigrem’s @ObliqueResponse Phone
Giacomo Lepri’s Cembalo Scrivano .1 (CS1) augmented typewriter
(&…perhaps you?)

Our old friend Ian Morrison passionately talked about howling wolf though, I missed to catch the point how it was connected to the technology.

—– ?  But that is what Dorkbot is.   😀

For me, it is an occasion not only to see a kind of technical fun but also to see the old friends. — anyway, if anybody was a serious techno person, he / she wouldn’t come to Dorkbot.   Dorkbot is a jokey spot to see a fun.  😀   

(Those photos were taken by a junk Canon EFS 18~55 Zoom or Toy lens on Sony A7R)

.

Sony Tilt

This is a photo taken by a homemade tilting device for my Sony A7R with Canon EFS zoom, while giving 20° tilt to the lens. 

I wouldn’t proclaim this photo was anything typical or special, still it might be pretty unique to this device.  Since the lens has been heavily tilted, focused area was only in the center and the both end was out of focus.  —– you may say “So what” I would say “Nothing, it was just a character of this device” that all. (Since broken EFS lens has no F-aperture control = it was fully open — still Zoom from about 24mm to 55mm and the manual focus was perfectly usable = not too bad for the lens of £5 from a junk box of a camera shop.

So the device or tilting attachment (which I’ve shown you the work piece on the previous post) was now usable state (though, I’m going to add a semi-automatic iris control for Nikon lens).  The lens mount was Canon EF even though Canon lens has no iris control, but its mount IS to attach Nikon, Pentax, Contax etc mount adapter.  With this device, up to 30° tilt is possible though, how useful is the another matter. Still, when opportunity was there, why not try.  It’s a fun.  😀

(The effect of extreme lens tilt IS, —> think IF one side was extended 15mm more, it’s mean for 15mm wide-angle  lens, it IS an extension for a life-size close-up, while keeping other end of picture still focused to infinity.)

In fact, I planed to make a tilting DSLR device using Canon 5D Mk-II, so that I bought one more Mk-II body to be hacksawed. (and 5D original body for research / test disassemble = so, I end-up to have x4  5D body — then, as I got Sony A7 body able to use it without hacksaw work ===> so, here is Sony Tilt !    🙂

.

Cutting business

Yes, it IS (was) a cutting business (with hack-saw and the files etc) in deed.   (It was a reason why I’ve been away a while — normally Zen Buddhist doesn’t make any excuse (= since, if it’s happened, it has to be happened) though, these days, others may mistake I’m dead !  😀  

As a work on front of me, which was to make a tilting bellows for Sony A7 camera.  In the past, I’ve made quite few lens tilting devices and the cameras which can push the character of the wide-angle lens to the limit, exaggerating the effect of perspective in the pan-focus image enviroment.   To make it with the convenience of the DSLR, I pland it using a Canon 5D Mk-2, hence I’ve bought one more body though, while encountering to Sony A7 which got 18mm thin flange-back (distance from the lens mount to image sensor) on full frame format, I changed my plan at once.

18mm flange-back against the most of full frame SLR’s lens of which got about 45mm back-focus, the margine of 15mm or so was ample enough to maneuver the lens even with 30° tilt !   (+Added advantage of the A7 camera is, its electronic view finder can keep showing the bright image even under the heavy tilt and the aperture stopped-doun condition.)

From this point, the rest of work would be a stitch work to make a leather bag bellows. (and the hundreds of the test shots to establish the technical data.)  🙂

I’ll show the finished product and the worthwhile image when they were ready.)

.

How silly !

Nik-DD

While checking my own post (I need = notorious trouble of mis-speling), I realized “Wait a moment, why did I need to make a screen shot of Aster flower, while having such fuzzy pinhole — How silly”

Whether you believe or not, I’ve completely forgotten the existence of Double Density Pinhole.  I should insist, this was not a demented memory but the Zen No-mind.   🙂   —– Zen only deals with the things on front = if not on front, it is not exists, since the mind is not clinging the No-existent things.

Anyway, to find the “Pinhole Machine” for Sony A7  and  For Nikon (+ adapter), and had the shot of Aster with ISO 25600 setting.  (More artefact noise would appear with longer exposure = dark evening)

The left photo was a Double density Pinhole. — Nikon type Pinhole machine has Multiple Pinhole as well. (Photo right)

They are the compalison = Pinhole machine for Sony A7 —– As the pinhole is much closer to the sensor, the images are much wider and the color on the edge is sifted to magenta. (Left is DD, and the right was mono-pinhole though, not much present fuzzy effect.

Nik-DD

Pinhole sounds simple and easy to make though, — because it IS such small, very difficult to controle = very difficult to replicate the same effect.

Nik-DD

So, I have to be contented to have this fuzziness on Autumn Color.  🙂

.

Exploding Cinema or Firework

Last night was a so called Bonfire night and may be to coincide with it, a cinema session “Exploding Cinema” was held in south London.

I popped out carring A7R camera with a homemade “Mag lens” attached on it.   But as I saw the fireworks over a park,  soon I realized that I put a wrong lens. 

Mag lens makes the largest halation among my homemade lens = bright spot like firework become just a big blob.  Still, that’s what I got then, — never mind, it won’t kill me in any way.

Exploding Cinema has been running by the volunteers, film enthusiasts for the past 25 years.  (And I know the current figurehead, Matt for 20 odd years.  When I met him, he was a visual media technician and I was an almost a dancer in residents of the Fridge Club in Brixton.)  Exploding Cinema is showing all the films submitted without selecting, and running totally independent. (so that, the waiting list said to be more than one year to be shown there)

So, the films shown there were from short comical Anime to professionally made quite serious one. (A film produced by Chris R’s “Drone Strike” was a heavy staff good enough for the big screen.)

And MMM    🙂

When I popped out, the fireworks exploded over my head, —– I found, the lens character of big blob is quite pretty in deed.  Ha ha ha,   😀

.

Aster — (Secondly Photo)

Aster (Aster amellus) must be one of the most common flower here.Its name Aster came from its star shape (why the round shaped star was sheen by such astric * shape  is the other problem ! )  😀

Leave such problem to a neuro scientist to argue.   I did some screen shot of its Aster’s image and created the secondly images.

In my policy, I reject the use of Photoshop or in-camera “Effects” kind, because they were the creations of somebody else. Not mine.

So, whether the artefact of “Hi-ISO noise” is a Digital process or a Character of the hardware is a point of the argument.

On process, the screen shot was made with ISO 25600 setting and during the exposure, the focus was shifted to give a blurring effect.

(Originals were shot by a homemade Mag Lens and the copy was made by Gaudy Lens on Sony A7R)

.

Sow Bread (Cyclamen) — (Secondly Photo)

(Top photo was in fact a screen shot of the second photo. — Second =

original photo was taken by a homemade Mag Lens and the

screen shot was done by even fuzzier  Gaudy Lens)   😀

Sow Bread (Cyclamen) was introduced to the Japan about 150

years ago.  Botanist then, Saburo Okubo named it as a direct

translation of the English name Saw Bread to  Buta-no-Manju !

(How beautiful ! ! !)

Most of us think, Cyclamen as a potted flower associated with

Christmas. — As a matter of fact, they are the best-selling plant 

in the winter.   So that, to find its flowers in a shady ground of a

public park was a rather surprise to me. (I have no knowledge or 

a proper reference book to distinguish whether this one was a

wild one or just humble but a tough type for an outside garden.)

.

Biggest selling plant mean, it has a very competitive big market

= how to attract the customer, so to find a good sale’s point is a

serious business.  So that, adding a nice smell to the normally

smell-less Cyclamen having a fierce battle. —– On the end a

Japanese scientist has succeeded to develop a nice smelled

variety by manipulating / tampering its chromosome.  =

Made a cross bleed between C.persicum (2n=48) and the

C.pupurascens (2n=34) with scent, to (2n=41) then by the 

use of  Colchicine alkaloid from Saffron, made it to (2n=82). 

(And further process by exposing to Ion-beam to change its

DNA to create nice color with nice smell.)

The whole process sound very complicated and awful. 

Somebody, a kind of  “Activists” may start a fuss, still others may

say it was not actually tampered the Gene but only the change of its

container (Chromosome) which technique has been used to creates

many Seedless fruits such as  the seedless grape, water melon etc.

(When the number of chromosome set was changed to x2, x3 …

such irregularity obstructs the normal development of the seeds

= hence seedless fruits.) 

Although, the plant can produce the fruits, its plant was fertile =

even a cross-pollination couldn’t produce next generation = no

possibility of its spread of an abnormality = safe to the Nature.

—– ?  is it ?        

(As a matter of the fact, our Nature has been bombarded by the

cosmic ray, nuclear particles etc. which is causing the damage /

change of the Gene.

(Which may have contributed to the evolution of many species.)

—– Even on the worst analogy, an Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima,

must be caused millions of genetic mutations if not just burnt to

the death, didn’t create a single Super cockroach nor Giant man.

Genetic mutation might cause the abnormal development or

abnormal growth of the cell or organ (which was called Cancer)

if not die straight, but to have a chance to create any distinctive

new feature to the species is a rare rare occurrence.

To see what is natural and which is not, or how far we can go is a

very difficult question (unlike Activists are shouting) = may be

our useless ideological imagination (and a want of nice smell) is

creating more trouble.  😀

.

Hop

A  plant Hop (Humulus lupuls) is a very peculiar plant, which

belong to a small family of Cannabaceae.  From its family name,

you might have guessed, yes, Hop is a cousin of Cannabis.  But

they two looks so different — How botanist found that they

were related ? ? ?    And you might have heard that a stronger

kind of Cannabis, Skunk was created by a crossbreed with Hop. 

(Though, it was unlikely the cross-pollination, nor grafting, so 

some said even a genetic engineering — how it was done

was still in a mystery.)

But, in generall, Hop was only

associated with a beer.

As a matter of fact, me to see

this plant, it was only the third 

time on my life.

First time was on a farm hedge

in the Hertford Shire.

Second time was in a fringe of

a park in the south London.

Then this time, it was a hedge of a

non assuming ordinary hose in south London. = It seems

she always appeared in the most unlikely place. (Of course,

as I didn’t go to see it “likely place” = Hop garden of Kent

or Hop yard of a west country.) — So, the question was,

how this plant or its seed came here ?      And my biggest

question IS how Hop was added to a beer in the first place.

— Has people got a habit to chew it to fleshen the mouth ? 

Then got an idea to put it into a drink ? 

Otherwise, it was the most inventive / creative idea the

mankind got.   (Though, I don’t drink beer.)   😀

(Those photos were taken by Tamron SP 90mm F2.5  on

Sony A7R)

.