3 – 11 Sunrise

Like on the morning of 9-11 in the United States, the sun doesn’t rise straight on 3-11 in Japan.

6:51 / This photo was taken by the Pentax 110 Auto 24mm lens on Sony A7R IV

And I saw it the same in here.

7:06 / P-24mm on A7RIV

6:55 / Distagon 18mm on D850

6:57 / Godo lens on N-Z7

7:03:05 / Godo lens on N-Z7

7:03:22 / Godo lens on N-Z7

7:05 / Distagon 18mm on D850

7:03:22 / Godo lens on N-Z7

7:07 / Godo lens on N-Z7

7:59 / Godo lens on N-Z7

Nine years ago Japn saw its one of the biggest earthquake and the Tsunami. Since then even the sun seems to aboid to see the eye to eye straight. ———-

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Yet on the afternoon, it turned out to be a best brilliant day in this spring !

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Cherry 2020

This photo was taken by Pla-B lens on NZ-7

by Pla-B too

By Nikkor 50mm F1.2 on Sony A7R4

By Tamron SP 90mm on Sony A7R4

By Mag lens on A7R4

Mag lens

Mag lens

Mag lens

Mag lens

In the south London, we saw almost no frost = rather warmer wet winter. = May be it caused this early Cherry flowers. (I’m not sure of this variety of cherry ?) —– and the other tree = Somei-yoshino also started to open.

This Somei-Yoshino is a month too early. (Taken by Pla-B lens) —– Strange phenomenon of this photo IS, = see this photo while your one eye closed = don’t you feel that the photo looks 3D !

I hope, COVID-19 wouldn’t hit this country too hard nor the locust comes here. ( —– Yet, last July, I knew the very moment, when the 7th seal was opened. )

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Moon for a Test

The photos here were taken by the Zeiss Sonner FE 55mm F1.8

It seems, the Moon on the 8th of March was a full moon (or so) = So, I clicked my camera, happen to be a Sony A7R-IV—– with a Zeiss 55mm, Olympus PenF 38mm, Pentax 110 Auto 24mm and a Nikkor 50mm F1.2.

It was an interesting test session for the lens and the camera.

Photo left = Olympus PenF 38mm F1.8 / Middle = Pentax 110 Auto 24mm F2.8 / Right = Nikkor 50mm F1.2 lens (Nikon lens has the resolution more than the 60 MP image sensor but Olympus PenF and Pentax 110 Auto lens didn’t )

Photo left = Zeiss Sonner FE 55mm F1.8 at F5.6 / Right = (old Ai) Nikkor 50mm F1.2 at F5.6

Apparently, Nikkor showed much sharper image than a Zeiss Sonner lens but there was a reason behind = AF lens on A7R-4 on Manual Exposure setting worked pretty badly = Auto Focus didn’t work, neither Focus Magnifier was there. (Focus magnifier on the A7R was very effective but not on this latest model ( = where is the Button ? ? ? = I found that the AF-on button needed to be customized !) —– Sony might be making their camera not friendly with anything other than their genuin Sony Lens. – If so, why Sony-Zeiss Sonner didn’t focus Moon ?)

Nikkor 50mm F1.2 – F5.6 — (It seems, the white balance was wrong, and the Sony’s image process was too funny = make a moon looks like plastic ball was dreadfull.

You would say that to take picture of the Moon with 50mm lens was the crazy idea. THOUGH, the 60 MP Sony A7R-4 image sensor should be capable to be enlarged to such extent. And this picture demonstrated it well. (It’s works as long as the lens was good !) (You can see a proper Moon shot here )

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Magnolia by Normal lens

N50-1.2

Again, they are the same Magnolia flower but taken by the ordinary lens = Nikkor 50mm F1.2 (set at F1.2)

N50-1.2

With wide open iris = F1.2, DOF was very shallow and out of focus bokeh was such big.

N50-1.2

N50-1.2 no ext ring

And, this was really the ordinally (without an extension ring) shot. 😀

Z85-1.4

Then, those following photos were taken by the Zeiss Planer 85mm F1.4 (at 1.4 setting and with extension ring)

Z85-1.4

Z85-1.4

Z85-1.4

Z85-1.4

Zeiss 85mm has a bit smaller F-aperture but longer focul length = so that having a more or less the same DOF —– still show a bit more solid image.

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Pentax K 20mm F4 on N-Z7

It was so long time ago, I don’t remember how and why I got this Pentax ME body. (I had a Pentax SP = M42 mount and Pentax 6×7 — I think I had Pentax MX for short time (Where that camera has gone ? ? ?) and for this ME body I think I bought this 20 mm lens as a body cap.

Photo right: On the Nikon Z body, a NEX to NZ adapter was first attached, because there are almost any lens adapter exists to NEX but very few to NZ in the market. (Some of them got loose bayonet kind, still usable = better than noting. Don’t expect too much for £5 product. 😀 )

Like a much loved Pentax 110 Auto 24 mm lens, why not to use other small lens on Nikon Z —– (other than fuzzy homemade lens. 😀 )

Unlike 110 Auto 24 mm, this K mount 20 mm was not very small still, it is smaller than today’s lens. Optical quarity is not too bad. (considering the price of a body cap = £50 or so ? )

I’m sure, like this situation, shot on a film camera fails. I set the ISO 400 on NIKON Z7 though, the camera set the ISO 25,600 by himself and exposed on 1/50 (aperture was F4) —– even over the double grazed window, the image was quite usable. (What a progress)

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Early Magnolia 2020

In this post, the photos were taken by a homemade lens Godo Lens, except no.4.

Those photos were taken by Tamron SP 90mm Macro on Nikon Z7.

I featured this flower twice (?) before using another fuzzy lenses. But, it seems the people takes the flower branch home there is no branch left on the lower part of the tree, and made me very difficult to take picture. (So, I needed to resort with something special measure. 😀 )

Those following five pictures were taken by the other homemade lens “Pla-B” Lens” —– though, with the bad weather I trid three times to get a kind of results. 😀

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eBay fraud

On the face, eBay system was well designed and tightly operated —– That’s what I thought till I stumbled on this trouble. And while dealing with this trouble and went into deeper, I realised that the eBay was also very well designed as the system of the fraud.

When I wanted to buy a Pentax lens which happen to be sold by a Japanese seller, there was a mistake of misspelling of my name. (which was a mistype of “l” instead of “I”most likely made by a staff of Royal Mail = because Japanese (seller) knows Japanese name, such unpronouncable spelling couldn’t be made by them. – – – Anyway, because of the name was wrong, I couldn’t pay the import duty, therefore the item couldn’t be delivered to me, and sent back to Japan. As all those tracking data were clearly recorded, eBay ruled out, that I should be granted the full refund of the money I’ve paid, on the 17th Jan’2020 while saying it may takes 48 hours to appear on my bank account. (In the other refund case of which the amount of the money was less than a pound, refunded to my bank account was made only following day)

But, as no refund was made into my account even after a month, I started to feel suspicious. = I try to see how this kind of trouble was dealt with ? Then I discovered that the most of trouble which was likely occur in the net shopping was categolised and formatted to such as “item was broken” “Who pays return Post” etc etc though, there is no place to click “No refund was paid”. And no channel to make any complaint. There is NO customer service who will take care of the trouble. Neither the phone works. And even no address to send a complaint / inquiry letter. (in their website)

In the formatted question, clicking “Contact Paypal” goes to a blank page (photo right)

(There is so-called eBay community site where people can make a question etc and other member (?) answer / advice. Though, when I made a question on my case, it was disappeared alltogether while saying “System error” ! ) = (They got AI to watch and supress the inconvenient question)

Going through the net, I found the eBay.co.UK’s legal address in the Luxembourg. And, thier might be address = eBay UK, Hotham House, 1 Heron Sq’ South Richmond, Richmond-on-Thames, TW9 1EJ And a telephon number 0906-665-8030 (though, this phone is dead)

So, the eBay would say that there is no such things like “Refund money was not paid” could ever happened, therefore there is no need to foresee any remedy. But it might be a part of their system to make money. = in other words, the system of the fraud. That’s why, all the channel or the possibilities to make a complaint was tightly shut and heavily guarded.

(If anybody has the trouble with eBay, please give a comment here (which may not be published and answered by me privately)

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Walk with Godo lens

Among my homemade lens, being as if it was almost ordinary lens, Godo lens is the most remarkable lens. There was no eccentric feature like 1/2, 1/4 lens kind but two ordinary unknown origins lens put together. (yet, one of them came from my friend Gordon = hence Godo lens ) And the lens happened to produce quite normal image (if not a lots of halation) together with quite nice softness. On top of that, thanks to a Chinese helicoid ring, good convenience of close up use.

I went back to the so-called Perpetual Cherry Tree and found that the area was in a construction site. (Tree was still there and seems flowering though)

I’m not sure whether they are bamboo or reed ?

I like a natural looks quality of this macro. (Too sharp image of most of macro makes the flower looks like an animal body parts) – – – Unless the one was a forensic scientist, we may not like to see too sharp detailed flower parts.

For the cost almost nothing homemade lens, I would say, this is the good lens.

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Heaviest Gadget for 6×7

This is a homemade bellows for Pentax 6X7 camera, I made it 45 years ago. — ( I was working for botanical photography at the Uni’s Makino Herbarium then. Though, I was using more of 35mm Nikon camera – – – – since, Makino’s archive was 35mm Kodachrome and 6×7 camera was mostly for other journalistic subjects.)

This bellows’ solid structure does well stand against the heavy shutter, mirror shock though, the whole unit (with camera body) was too heavy to carry around = it never went out field. (For field work, I was using 135mm F4 Pentax 6×7 macro lens) I designed this bellows system for EL-Nikkor 100mm F4. So, this system can make the image from infinity to x1.5.

And now, it is more like a technical sample or, industrial remain. 😀

( And in reality, this device didn’t under take the work much = theoretically it should be useful though, in practice, there isn’t much needs of tilt and shift, and in most of the case, the depth of the field of macro lens when it was stopped down, could cover the needs.)

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Simple Arithmetic (2)

Was that the nature of Chinese electronics, I’m not sure, the LED ring light on a Z-light arm stop to work less than a month = switching control unit has brake down. Still, connecting the USB power direct, LED light itself can be light on. —– Then wait a moment. LED power is 5V, the Ring light was said to be 8W = its mean this lighting unit was designed somewhat for less than 2A (8W / 5V = 1.6A) (and anyway, the USB adaptor was 2A Max).

Connecting USB 5V direct to the LED light can be used though, it will be an over current to both LED and USB adaptor = soon they will be burnt out. To save the broken LED ring light, it is necessary to take a measure to limit the current = need to connect a resistor. To limit the current to 2A with 5V, we need a 2.5 Ohm resistor.

So, I connected 2.2 Ohm resistor (this type of resistor is getting harder to find though) (Why the wire of resistor was not cut short was, it get hot = need to disperce the heat) ( Note, for a sake of clarity, the photo was taken before applying insulation tape. )

With some improvisation, the LED light was rescued (though, without the brightness adjustment) —– I noticed that now, we can get the same LED light on Z-light arm for as cheap as £14 ! —– some of them may not break down. —– or am I expecting too much for £14 ? 😀

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