Cult Party

My friend’s Immersible Cult got 2 years anniversary and had

an end of the year party.  Especially they organized “Tokyo Dream”

party this year which was even featured in the Evening Standard

ES magazine, the party got quite few Japanese guests as well.

Free meals and drinks — though, they were completely vegetarian 

= boiled alive potatoes, skinned alive carrot etc etc.

= not much mercy for them.   🙂

In fact the guests are the staffs or the freelance artists who has been

involved into those projects etc = worked together, familiar faces.

Still, I do necessary know every faces neither who was doing what.

(In this time, those fuzzy photos were taken by a homemade

So-called Gaudy Lens — though some of them were out of focus)

Then the attraction started = Japanese singing/performing group

Frank Chickens. (Started here as the female Ninja !)

But, I’m not sure what are they doing.  🙂

The singers group Frank Chickens started 70s —–

and now having some new and young members.

(and even Irish and Polish men as well)

They sound something Rockefeller Building — ?

Don’t ask me what.  🙂

Then the party went into a dancing conclusion.

And so on, so on ~ ~ ~ till early morning.

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F&M Xmas Window 2015 (A)

Yes it’s the season to see one of my favorite subject = Xmas

show-windows.   And they are the Xmas window of the

Fortnum & Masons. (It’s an annual customs. Sir.)   🙂

(And for me, to shoot them, it’s the annual custom too.)

And on this post, they are rather ordinary kind of the photos.

(In my standard)   😀

I mean ordinary = By widely available Lens in normal shot.

= no artificial lighting or stage up = Just clicked straight photos.

If you think it’s looks a bit strange — don’t blame me. 

Blame F&M for their crazy decoration.  And if you click, 

a fish-eye lens, it naturally produces this kind of image

= It’s normal nothing special.

I think I took the pictures of the same man on the door so

many times = every year he is in the same place.

(And he might be thinking too, Gosh, that photographer again.)  😀

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Toys (Are Us) Exhibition Opening

Last night, there was an opening of

the Exhibition titled Toys (Are Us)

at the Crypt Gallery, Euston, London.

It was organized by Kosha Hussain,

and my old friend, Wayne Chisnall

brought his sculpture, Magnet as a

major piece.  And I joined the party

wearing  Rotating LED Disco Costume

which was created out of £0.5 Chinese Toy.

(So, it was in line with the concept of the Exhibition)  🙂

(Kosha Hussain, a Kurdish Artist who organized Exhibition address )

Some more information about the Exhibition, please see this.

Mind you, I joined the party to see old friend, as a

photographer, not to show you a journalistic report

of each piece and the artist.

(The photo above was taken by  Concentric-Double-Density Pinhole

— for my fun)

This was the Wayne’s piece, Magnet (in normal view )  🙂

(It seems, Wayne is giving a lecture. = make a jaw of the people drop)   🙂 

As a Crypt of the Church, they got quite a collection of Grave stones,

though I have no idea what those white staffs were and doing what.

Well well.  Some good staff, some not so staffs. Still, the exhibition

open till 21st (two more days) it must be interesting to pop in and

see the exhibits.

They got one of the most unusual atmosphere among  art galleries. 

(By the way, photo above was taken by 5 seconds exposure,with

Canon Fish-eye 8~15mm, on 5D-MkIII —– if the image was not

fuzzy DD Pinhole, the lest were all by the same Fish-eye Lens)

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Pinhole Machine in the Field

It’s not a Pinball Machine.  And a photo above is a Japanese maple ! 

As I explained in the Previous post, it is a combined / selectable Pinhole.

Single Pinhole, Multiple Pinholes and a Concentric-Double-Density Pinhole

were all in one panel, with or without a Wide-angle Front Lens.

Those were taken by the Concentric-DD pinhole.

They too, by the DD pinhole with the typical radiating halation.

And those images were taken by the Multiple (4) Pinholes.

If you carefully check the photo, you will find the 4 repeated images.

And DD pinhole image again. (Some years ago I made similar image !)

In the same time same subject but by the Multiple Pinholes.

Taken by a single pinhole though, with a very slow shutter speed =

camera was shaken, bird has moved = hence utterly blurry image.  🙂

Still, they were the very painterly images which I wanted.

By the DD Pinhole.

Last moment of sun hit the Single Pinhole and created

fantastic diffraction pattern.

Single Pinhole with half a second shutter speed = camera shake.   😀

And this image —– 1.6 second exposure.

(I would rather say, not too bad for a hand-held shot !)

I think, the Lens (?) worked well for the purpose to produce

impressionists like / painterly image !   🙂

(You must have seen the most unusable photos here though,

if you like to have so-called good photo, use Phone-camera.)

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Evolution of PINHOLE System

Till now, I made quite a lot of Pinhole to take pictures for my

Canon, Nikon and invented “Concentric-Double-Density Pinhole,

and Wide-angle Pinhole. 

On top of those, even Double, Triple Pinhole, Tri-Color Pinhole

— on the end, it’s a mess. = In order to rationalize, I designed a

Convertible Type = Simple Single Pinhole, up-to-4 Multiple Pinhole

and Concentric-DD Pinhole with Selecting Tab, on the Nikon Mount

(Which is easily converted to the Canon) together with Detachable

Wide-angle Lens on front. 

So, the sample images were, Top photo Left = by Single Pinhole, 

Middle = Triple Pinholes,  Right= Concentric-Double-Density Pinhole.

In this photo, Left is the Detachable Wide-angle (Diverging) Lens. 

In the Middle, Triangle-ish panel which got 3 selection of Pinholes can 

be moved to each position.      Right is a NikonAI  to  CanonEF adapter.

Photo left is my kitchen.

Or you may call my work shop.

—– you may realized, how

my work is casual.   😀

Still, it’s OK to produce

properly machined like quality ! 

And the photo here showed the effect of = with or without the

wide-angle lens.

And the photo here, right, the panel shows 4 holes — by moving

rear panel, the selected Pinhole will come to the position.

Photos from the window —

Left = Single Pinhole,   Middle = Triple Pinhole. 

Right = Concentric-DD Pinhole.

—– So, I have to go out to make worthwhile pictures !

* * *

Incidentally, a test shot of “that rose” with this DD Pinhole was:

Considering it IS mere hole, without focus or any control, still

the image was somewhat comparable to a good German lens

—– isn’t this, amazing ?

—– Or, unlike the Leiz, the Zeiss might have kept their belief

on “Natural Optical Image” like this !

—– Mind you, the Pinhole is not a “Light-bending” Lens or a

Grass, therefore neither has aberration inherent to the Lens at all.

Still, the outer (larger)  hole of Double-Density Pinhole here is

acting as a “Dispersed” Light-pass, hence showing similar effect of 

the Spherical Aberration (= effect of light coming from not only the 

center but the outer area of the lens as well which is not necessary

converges the light to the same point = make the image softer.

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Bonfire

I got quite few typical round flower like Fire-work photos of film

time, somewhere.   but nothing special of such ubiquitous photos =

no interest to find the photo from bottom of the box.

Instead, I just clicked the shutter and found the expected exposure

(ISO 200, 1/2 sec, F-5.6) was correct, when I saw the Fireworks

over my window.  —– Then, I set my camera (5D Mk-3) to 5 frames

Multiple Exposure.)    So, this is the end-product.

Those Fireworks were just made by locals and seen over the roof, 

so, nothing grand at all, still it was a fun to watch. 

And the Golden Rule to make a humble subject looks rich =

give multiple exposure while shaking the camera, worked perfect.   🙂

So, it was my Bonfire Night.

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Kyocera Junk Macro — in Practice

I’m well aware, making lens etc is one thing and actually use it is the other. 

Still, whether any worthwhile photo was created by it or not, is totally

different matter. —– I know, in this world, some of the people is having

a pleasure of possessing something rather than use it = just for a show-off 

(of his, her wealth or So-called Good taste) —– and the manufacturer is

well aware of this phenomenon too. So that they are producing specifically

designed outrageously expensive model for this target, with “Art” or “Opus”

kind of the name.   A camera, recently introduced from Leiz, Leica SL is one of 

the extreme case, = the camera which can takes more or less the same kind of

picture but priced whopping  $7450 for body.   Even if non of the photographer  

would buy it, still 10 of the “Leica Collector” in the world ought to buy = because,  

it was made by Leiz and listed in their catalog.  (Collection has to be complete.)

A Camera lens, I made out of junk

Kyocera-Yashica compact Zoom

Camera has been with me a

while  = waiting to encounter

good subject. ————————

Then, I found a tiny tiny dot on a Fig = it was an egg of the Green Lacewing.

Not very fashionable subject still, it is good for a macro-photography.

So, that’s how the top photo was made. ( x4 Magnification. though, quality

of the lens in comparison to my previous work, was not very impressive

—– shows chromatic aberration etc, hence,  not very sharp.)

—– still, it was a proof that the lens was in operation. 

(= I’m not feeling happy for just possessing the lens.)   🙂

*

    PS :  In order to have a bit more sharpness and the evenness of the image,

I put a hole of Black tape to reduce the effective F-Aperture to half of the

diameter (equivalent of 2 F-stops down) = the image quality was dramatically

improved ! — You might be realized that how the optics behave in simple

manner and lost a faith to worship expensive lens.   😀

(In fact, we are paying for the Brand image, not necessary for the quality, 

otherwise who pay  £3000 to a plastic camera ?)

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Shake shake (2)

There was a very similar photo of this, taken by a completely different technique

in this blog. = It is interesting to see an image of the 3D movement (depth) in

that photo was still captured as a 2D spread (shift) of the element.

What ever the technique or accident created its image, the matter is how the image

boggle the mind.    And what ever the origin of the image, some of them stuck and

remained in the depth of the mind very very long time.

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Shake shake (1)

There is nothing special of those photos, no trick, they are just

blared photos because of the camera shake.

Camera shake because of the slow shutter speed = 1/2, 1/4 sec’ kind. — And

to have such slow speed, lowest ISO setting and a dark ND filter was used. 

Make the situation worse, I was in a moving bus.   🙂

So, it’s easy to have un-sharp pictures —– just shake the camera.

(Of course, if you like.)   🙂

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Junk to Macro Lens = Recycle of Kyocera Zoom Lens

You might be misunderstanding that I’m playing with cameras for the

sake of blogging. Far from it, behind the scene I’m disassembling

3 times more lenses or cameras.  I only showing them if I found a fun.

In most of the case, I’m doing it just looking for a spare parts or

particular component such as when I needed to get a mirror for an

ultra-low-angle photo-adapter.     —– I was disassembling a Yashica

compact Zoom camera, looking for a Motor and a Gear mechanism.

— Some old film cameras had auto-wind and rewind mechanism which

I could utilize in the other mechanical design.  So, from Yashica, I got

two motors with each gear mechanism, and not only that, I found an

extending Zoom lens barrel seems to be very useful. 

I had used a same kind of barrel to make a focusing helicoid.

This Kyocera-Yashica 38~115 mm zoom lens seem to have a quite 

fancy design.  Front group convex lens has a Canon like Arc-formed

motor for focusing and having aspherical lens, and rear group is pure

diverging concave lens.   And I found the front group lens works well

as a macro lens (used in reverse) = So, mount the lens into the

extending lens barrel = Here I have a x1~x3 (about) macro lens.

This front group lens had a Shutter-aperture-combined blade which

I removed therefore there is no F-Aperture = always fully open !

—– still, this sample photos showed rather good quality and giving

beautiful out of focus bokeh.

But with further test, lens showed strong curvature of the image =

image is not flat = good for 3D subject but not good for a flat object.

(When lens was designed, the aberrations, inherent to any single lens

were corrected by the combination of the other lens.  Yet, in this case, 

such strong curvature of the image needed to be corrected by the 

strong diverging lens of the rear group.  But, as only front group lens 

was used here, the uncorrected aberration became too apparent.

—– Photo above Left showed x3 image.  Its coloring was caused by the

Chromatic aberration.  Photo Middle (x1 size), the best focus was made

to peripheral.  And the Right, best focus was made to center.   The focus

to the center is 4mm different ! = If the subject was 4mm deep shallow

dish, this lens will make a good focus from center to the corner.)

I need to find a good subject. = Ideally, Halloween Costumed insect.   🙂

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