Pink — Impressionist’s Pink !

In early spring when the sun is not strong, the flower has to rely on its

hi-visibility color = yellow to appeal to the insects.

But when the spring deepen with increasing  sun light,  flowers who got other

tactics such as sweet scent doesn’t need to rely on its visibility,  hence  free to

pleasure  with another color. —– Then the Pink become in fashion.  😀

Though, I’m not knowledgeable enough whether those Pink has any effect to the

human psychology. Why a young lady saw something naughty blushs pink (red ?)

or a glass or two drinks makes the cheek pink ?

My friends has been rather wondering, or even suspicious about my eyes or

mental condition if those fuzzy images were the symptom of poor eyesight or

a kind of drowsiness for some kind of intoxication.  😀  

Surely, drunken wouldn’t say “I’m drunk” and I think I can focus if I need.

Those photos above were taken by the lens from Kodak Fun Camera on 5D.

But this photo above were taken by the Wide-angle double-density Pinhole.

And this one is a normal photo as a reference

—– whether you feel boring or sigh of relief (at home).   😀

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Shooting Party

Yesterday, I’ve joined a Shooting Party who had taken the photographic course

together many many years ago !

As they are living in the Greenwich area, party went to familiar

Greenwich Park.

I went there with my Fish-eye lens, 24~70mm Zoom and

I field-tested yet another funny lens from a Disposable-camera !

Fish-eye lens worked well as always.  🙂

And those pictures were taken by another fancy lens 

= Wide-angle Double-density Pinhole !

The lens (?) worked perfect for ” the Impressionist’s Photography”.  🙂

(May be I need to have costumed actor and actress ! )   😀

Easiest way to make impressive picture is —– take picture of grand subject.  😀

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Lens from Toy-camera

——- (Photo above :  Left = the edge of the lens has been cut to put a LED illumination.)

On the market, there are many adapter lenses for a Smart-phone or Tablet camera

to take wide-angle or tele-photo picture.  And many people might have

experimented to put magnifier glass or even the interchangeable lens of a SLR on

front of a Smart-phone camera.  = Yes, the lens placed on front, affect the image.

——– (Photo above Left = With additional lens, small letters on a receipt

——– was magnified = looks very sharp.)

Though, in most of the case, any lens put on front, functioning like a close-up lens.

And only the concave lens (such as short-eye-sighted specks lens kind) could make

the image smaller = wide-angle effect but may not give you any sharp image.  

Yet still, they works well like as a close-up lens, even like a microscope.

The photos here shows the effect of a small lens put on the Tablet (Nexus 7).

The very lens came from a kind of toy-camera.

(Lens and the Image censer looks same to the £30  Security camera.  😀 )

Still, this lens can project the outside image to the 4x3mm size censor.

It’s mean, use this lens in reverse, the lens can pick up the image of 4x3mm

and projects it to the land-scape size. 

So, I mounted this lens on the top of  18cm  spray can,  same way as I did before.

——– (Photo here = Bird’s feather  x40  magnification)

Apparently, the lens got  6mm or so focal length and 180mm extension  (together

with camera’s 44mm flange-back) it can give  whopping  x40  magnification.

——– (Photo here = Butterfly’s wing again —–  x40  magnification)

(Though, I wouldn’t say, with such magnification, taking photo is easy at all.  

= image in the view finder is very dark and the depth of field is extremely shallow

= with slight movement, the image vanishes.)    😀  

—– Coincidently,  I found a collection of Butterfly wing’s photos.  It must be the

result of months, if not years of work (together with a lots of digital manipulation)

= still pretty impressive.

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Cause of Broken Zoom

———————— (Photo above, Right — Note a clack in the white nylon gear )

Yet again, this is about the same broken Sigma Zoom Lens.

While examining the mechanism, electronics, I’ve been puzzling why

this lens was not working.   It seems everything are functioning. —– ? ? ?

—– Then I noticed, when the AF motor was connected to the battery

and rotating, focus mechanism only moves a little.  In both direction,

gears rotates only short time even though the motor was kept running.  

—– On the end, I discovered,  a gear connected to the motor has a clack, 

so, it’s loose from the shaft and slipping.

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In theory, it is easy to replace the gear like this, which is not expensive.  

BUT in practice, in order to access this part of the mechanism, the whole

lens has to be disassembled. —– Considering the time and the expertise,

just  change a small gear which cost (to the Sigma) may not be more than 50P,

still the service charge would be more than £100.  

= good second-hand would be even cheaper. 

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In my life, I rarely paid a service charge to the camera company.

 1) I don’t brake a camera.   2) If it started malfunctioning, I repair myself.  

3) If it was beyond repair, I disassemble and use it for experiment. (and have a fun !)  

4) Being as a technical writer, the service engineers are my good friend and to keep

cosy relation, camera company wouldn’t charge us.  (often, broken camera is a bad

news which the company want to keep it  in secret.  

And our feed-back is indispensable for them. )

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In principal, the Gear shouldn’t break, still, as I saw the broken gear like this

only  the second time, it is rare occurrence.  = it should be OK

= and if it happened on you,  you are extremely unlucky.  

Have a pint or two and blame the God.  🙂

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B/W Photo

Well, not quite.  Never mind, it’s a sort of.

They are  x10 Macro shot. —– In order to have something significant image

out of bird’s feather, it needs to have  x50 magnification.

I still couldn’t figure out “How bird can make a egg” —– I mean

it’s technological aspects.

Not mention, How their Feathers were made ?

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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.  🙂  🙂

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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.

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—– 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.

___/\___

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F-Aperture / Iris Control

As I wrote in the previous posts, I have recycled rear element of the

broken Zoom lenses to use for the macro photography.  Both of them were

Canon EF type lens which has an electronically controlled Diaphragm / Iris.

Electronic Iris has an advantage, they  only needs electronic connection,

not a rigid mechanical connection though, this electronics is not just a cable.

—– If the recycled lens was maintained

all the electronics as before, Iris could 

be controlled by the camera side. 

But when the lens was stripped down

to Iris and its Pulse motor,  it is

necessary to create a driving circuit 

for the motor. = And this Pulse motor

needs to have a specific alternating pulse.  

So that a Pulse generator and a Full-bridge

driver would be needed.

(If you would like to know about those pulse motor and its proper control,

please Google  >>> Bipolar stepper driver schematic )

Electronics is a funny phenomena.  It can be elaborated to have Hi-Tech

sophistication but in the same time it still works in a very primitive way.

= Such as the Electro-Magnetic device could be as sophisticated as HDD, still,

if you wind a wire around an iron nail and connect it to the battery, it would

work as an Electro-Magnet and pull the other iron pieces. 

To drive such pulse-motor, there are many IC chips in the market though

most of them are for higher voltage.  I needed to make it using discreet

components = as long as it generates alternating pulses, the Iris works.

(The original driving circuit has a PWM = Pulse-Width-Modulation for

smooth and quiet operation, but here better not ask too much)

The photo above is a circuit to open-close the Iris in the cannibalized

rear element from a Sigma Zoom lens.   (Can drive Canon’s  as well !)   

(Circuit was too simple, I didn’t even bothered to use Prototyping Beloboard

—– just soldered together. = as long as it works, good enough to test)

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From the test, I found the circuit was just enough = no frill, bare minimum.

(Ideally the F-Aperture value indicator may be needed though, in practice,

I may not need more than “Fully open for focus — close down for shooting”

= I decided to put only  two switches, open and close. ~ ~ ~ When the building

work progressed, I’ll show the new photos.  🙂

———————————-

PS:   WP noticed me, this is not only my 602nd Post but this is also the

Anniversary of 5 years  on blogging. —– gosh.  😀

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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.  

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Walk on Greenwich (2)

Those photos were taken same time as the previous post,

and this is the group of flower images.  Yes, it’s the spring.

And yet more Magnolia.

This is a Rhododendron ! —– It’s crazy.  Rhododendron in March ? ? ?

And this is a Catkin though, I don’t know the Catkin of which tree.  🙂

——————————————–

Those photos were the odd addition. —— round the corner of the town.

Time to time I see Olive tree, still to see it fruiting was very rare.

By the way, this is my 600th post still, nothing special

= life just goes on as Zen.

___/\___

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