Battery case
To use homemade device like LED ring light, we need a battery case. The battery case sold on the market is a kind, left on the photo above which is dreadfully cheaply made = unreliable and easy to break, yet cost a pound or so. — instead, I found a battery holder for Canon’s old Motor drive, in the odds and ends box in the camera shop, of which cost also a pound or so (still having Canon quality). 😀
Battery holder of the motor drive were made for 10 AA battery, so, we can cut it to 3 battery size or 4 battery size. Then I mount a flash shoe which came from a junk flash light which is cheaper than a flash shoe adaptor, and a DC adaptor socket, and a register to limit the current.
For white LED, the battery got to be more than 3, then the current got to be about 50 mA for each LED = If 20 LEDs were parallel-connected — 50 mA x 20 = 1000 mA — for 4 AA battery design need 4.8/1 = 4.8OHM — some what 4.7OHM were needed.
The work itself was a kind of cut and glue still, the end result wasn’t too bad —– though, these days, you can find a ring light set from China as cheap as £15 which got a ready made battery case, even a stand comes together = To do what, is your choice = Its your life. —– I’m enjoying those DIY games = puzzle to find the solution. And that is the beauty of Homemade = Do a thing on the own hand instead of a shopping on a cauch !
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LED Macro Light
Such as 110 Instamatic Macro, when the magnification became larger, the focusing become increasingly difficult = simply its became too dark. Flashlight wouldn’t help focusing. —– So, I made a LED Macro Light for Instamatic Macro lens.
In fact, I made many LED Ring Light before and this one is so far the smallest of all.
The first one I made was not satisfactry and I needed to make another. (You may think that the LED has no problem of heat, but the LED’s efficiency to convert the electricity to light is only 40%, its mean, rest of elecricity all goes to the heat = LED is a 60% heat generator. With over current and the over heat, LED detriorate very quick = heat management is the key point of the design to use LED)
Light distribution seemed OK (photo right). Though, the image of ring light is all ways boring. (Still, we can improvise them = such as to cover the one side LED using black-tape, etc.)
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Leitz 50 mm-vs-Zeiss 55 mm
Casually I called Leitz Elmarit lens I used on the Nikon Z in the previous post, a homemade though, glass itself was a serious Leitz product. Hence, having a proper optical quality as we expect. —– ? was it ? = was that quality, within a normal standard ?
—– So, I made a comparizon.
This is the test image taken by the Leitz Elmarit P 50 mm F2.8 at F2.8. With the focus peaking. (Photo right was a part enlargement of the centre = the top of the tree) —– the small twig still maintain its detail though, is this fuzziness normal ?
So, to have a close comparizon, Zeiss Sonner FE 55 mm F1.8 lens was mounted to the same Nikon Z7 body and had the test shot on the same tree, same condition. (since Zeiss / Sony lens has a funny habit = keep move the focus, so that, click the shutter when focus was peaked) In the photo right, some leaves on the tree were coloured red = may be an effect of the chromatic aberration. Was it ? Wait a moment = this is not a £1 junk projection lens but a genuine Zeiss / Sony lens costed hundreds of the pounds. (Even though it was made in Thailand)
Then, I gave yet another test = Zeiss Sonner lens was mounted on the Sony A7R body and had exposure of F1.8 and F8. (manual focus) —– F1.8 image (photo above middle) was the sharpest among all the photos in this post. (Though, strangely F8 image = photo right, was soft —– very difficult to make a precise manual focus on this A7R camera)
Since the same Zeiss lens showed no chromatic aberration on the A7R body here, there is a possibility of either (1) Sony has correction program built into their image processor to compensate lens’s own aberration. or (2) The lens’s obstruction = keep moves its focus when the lens was not mounted on the Sony body = moves only a small part of lens, only to destruct the clear image, hence making big chromatic aberration on the Nikon Z body.
Yet those photos here showed very different strory. The photos were taken same as those photos above.
= Zeiss lens on the Sony A7R body. Exposed on F1.8 and F8. —– But here, F1.8 image (photo middle) showed funny chromatic aberration (red leaves)
—– the correction program of Sony Image Processor may be working erratic. (still, how to make only some leaves red on the Nikon Z and on the Sony A7R as well looks too strange = In fact, the culprit mast be the Lens, not the camera, though, how this Zeiss FE lens can put the red color to a selected part of the image ? === this phenomenon needs to be investigated further !
This is a problem of the “Soft controled digital imaging” = it would make a pretty picture though, it may work, may not work like a Beauty App. That why I hate those artificial images. (Still, film photography can create strange phenomena too —– but, as I didn’t have an experience to enlarge a 35 mm color photo to 1.5 m big and examin the details, may be I was not aware )
Here, they are the shot to finish-off this argument (of Red Leaves) made by Zeiss Sonner 55 mm ZE lens. = The lens was tested at F1.8 if it showes chromatic aberration of red and green fringe on the roof pattern. = The result was as you see. (When the lens was fore-focused, the image has green fringe — photo above right)
And I found a very interesting bokeh pattern on the tree behind. The question is, is this the quarity of the lens which says “Sony / Zeiss Sonner” ? ? ? ( 55 mm is not special, neither F1.8 is difficult to design)
So, how about the chromatic aberration of the Nikon 50 mm F1.2 (photo middle) and F2.8 (photo right) —– a lots of red leaves seems to be here too ! = We shouldn’t be surprised. —– Otherwise we need to pay thousands of £ for a lens which shows no aberration on fully opened iris. === Only the question IS, why we need such perfect image ? ? ? (May be the obsession.) = If you want to see the perfect image, come down to the tree and see it close)
The reason why we don’t see such Chromatic aberration everyday, —– (1) We don’t use maximum F-aperture often, except in the very dark situation. And if it was dark, we can’t see such color fringe in the dark details. (2) In those lenses (Zeiss 55 mm, Nikkor 50 mm) when we stop down two or three stops, the aberration would be disappeared = hence we don’t became aware its existence. (3) We don’t enlarge the image to such big size. = so that, in the small print, the color fringe (even if it’s there) would be buried in the details. (If you are seeing the enlarged tree top photos in this post on a PC screen, it is the equivalent of seeing a 36×24 mm size photo enlarged to the 120 cm x 80 cm (43″x32″) and giving a close look.
The aberration is an optical phenomena, when the light was not converged into the focal point and spread to the surroundings as well, make the image fuzzy. Among the cause of such problem, if it was coused by the way how the light was bend differently by its color (= wave length) it was called Chromatic Aberration. As you might remember to see the rainbow 7 colors made by a prisome, when the light go through the glass they bend according to the wave length (= color). To solve this problem, converging lens which bend the red light more to outward and the diverging lens which bend the blue light more to outward were combined together to conpensate each other to the light concentrate to the same focal point (so to make a sharp picture). —– While making the light bend inward and outward, still make them to converge to the same focal point, optical designer use the fancy technique and special glass etc etc = that’s why good lens is using 10 or more glasses inside of one lens. (= making such lens hugely expensive) —– Sigh 😀
—– Still, it is rather rare to see such prominent Chromatic Aberration like the red leaves here, —– in most of the case, the fringe color appeared only on the edge of the details and make the picture just a bit soft. (Hence the most of the people doesn’t became aware such things ever existed in his lens. )
And in this point, why the Leitz projection lens I’ve talked on the begining of this post showed such character become clear, = the projection lens showes the 35 mm slide image hugely enlarged therefore the chromatic aberration would become quite visible yet, a bit soft image wouldn’t be much of the trouble as the larger the projected image, people view it from the larger distance.
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It seems, the battle between the camera, lens keep going on. 😀
ZM2 Lens – Spring Walk
First visitor here tonight was from USA, seeking Plum Flower. So, I’ll show you many Cherry flowers, Plum Flowers.
You may not believe though, all those photos here were taken by just one lens, (homemade ZM2 lens, on Nikon Z7 camera — ISO 100, AV setting) Slight difference of the focus, the lens can produce quite different kind of image !
This plant called Japonica Japan was originated from Japan as its name suggests, and a cousin of Quince, or relative of Pear. Incidentally, a name Nipponia Nippon which meaning is the same (Nippon is the formal name — Japan is a nick name after Marco Paulo) was for national birds Toki who has been nearly extinct and revived to about 150 now.
Ever cute Snow drop, Japanese name is Yukiwari-so (雪割草) which mean the flower who sprout out the snow !
I found this variety of cherry first time in this country. Still no idea of its name.
And this is somewhat close to the plum. (But not Japanese Ume 梅 —– I don’t know why Ume didn’t come here.)
And this is Daphne —– somewhat related to Cloves though, the story was very complicated = lots of misunderstanding. (You might have seen a furniture made by a wood called Mahogany but never know what its tree looks like.)
Same as that, the wood for burning incense Agarwood 沈香 was a mystery to the Japanese for many hundreds of years, and people mistook this plant was related to Cloves 丁字 (hence Japanese misnamed this Daphne as 沈丁花－－－on both case the letter 丁 represents the shape of nails which is a shape of the Cloves as well and the smell of this flower is the same to the Cloves though) those plants are in fact totally different plant.
Since Agarwood can be sold for very high price, the tree has been pushed to near extinction = now they are protected and the genuine wood is hard to come by, so that, there said to be a lots of fake in the market. ( = a wood dripped into an artificial incense was sold to the tourists.)
Crocus is a relative of the Saffron. (So, don’t eat them)
(In fact, Daffodil is also poisonous — if you eat = Who eat ?)
I guess this cherry seems to be originated from Yama-zakura. — but not sure of its multi-petal flowers.
So, it was a nice walk and shootings.
Those three photos were somewhat an extra. I met Ms.S and Mr.M as a next door of one of the cherry flower’s place. They got very fancy bicycle with motor. (And those photos were for them to copy from here)
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In Comparison — (D850/Z7/A7R)
Strangely it may sound though all those photos were taken on the same settings = AV, ISO 100, Shadow and -2 comp. But the lens of top photo was Nikon mount Zeiss 18 mm F3,5 (at 5.6) on D850 and the photos below, the Left were Pentax 110 Auto 24 mm F2.8, the Right were So-called Omunifocus Fun lens about 28 mm F13. The timings were as marked. (despite the same Shadow setting, why the sky on this picture was not so orange was = that they changed the color so quick.)
And those photos were by a Nikon Z7 camera. Left was Pentax 110 lens, Right was Fun lens. See within 2 minutes, how quickly the sky changes. By the way, camera was not stationed on a tripod but hand-held —— while changing the camera and the lenses, time fly. (In comparison, Z7 can give clearer and clean image than A7R)
Those photos were by the Sony A7R camera. Again Left was Pentax 110 lens, Right was Fun lens. Note, in here right photo was the earliest photo among all those photos. (seemingly, A7R gave the most orange shifted color)
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Vest Pocket Lens on A7R
On here, the images of Vest Pocket lens from the field test. (Give a close eyes to this photo and see how the details and rich tones are there ! —– by the way, the image looks a bit more greenish on iPad screen.)
—– If the image looks fuzzy, the lens was fully open (F6.6). (But mind you, the original Vest Pocket camera’s image was 6×9, therefore we are only seeing its cropped center here.)
(They are the sample) Left = F6.6 / Right = F11) — Pantograph was fully extended for close up.
(Amazingly sharp image together with nice halation of spherical aberration from the F6.6 Vest Pocket lens ! )
(This photo above, look the cobbles and see their blurred pattern —– but, on the small contact print of card-size image, who would notice it ? )
Well, Vest Pocket lens on the Sony A7R was the camera who took those photos though, behind of those, there were many more minutely blurred photos, seemed to be caused by the wobbly lens structure. Otherwise, some photos were amazingly sharp, considering that they came from such old single glass lens ! (And it would rise a very serious question, that is, the great effort the manufacturer spending to create 10, 20 elements lenses using ED glass etc, what sort of practical significance was made ? —– of course, unless otherwise, there couldn’t be such as 14mm F1.8 lens or 18mm~400mm Zoom etc etc still, —– ? ) In reality, often, those expensive technical samples were made for demonstration purpose and made only 100 or so to display in their showroom. In contrast to the millions of 18~55mm plastic kit lens. Funny fact was, even after the people was made to believe that “the Larger the Better” myth suddenly changed into iPhone camera. —– It indicates that, so-called fine sharp image might be just a formality nobody actually bother. )
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Thinking process
Sorry, it’s about that bellows again. — behind the apparent shape and its function, that Sony Tilt attachment has many hidden structures and the stories, such as the bottom of A7R camera, additional plate was screwed. Because the device’s constant adjustment = rotation, the plate protect the camera bottom scratched. And the hard alumium plate has anodized hard surface, which would prevent the two aluminium parts stack together.
You may not able to guess how the bag bellows was made and attached to the mount of both side. Imagine, if the leather bag was made separately, how you can attach it to the mount (Body side was a camera body cap and the lens side was the back of the front panel with Canon EF mount attached.) = In order to have the precise position of the mount, a length of black leather was first glued to each mount ring. Then the leather was folded to the position and stitched together to make a closed bag. (Because the tilt movement is only one side, the bag was made wedged shape.)
When we make (design) something, there are two different approach. One is to imagine the final piece in the brain first. And cut the material in each size and shape then assemble altogether. And the other is, bring the major material to the place and find the size and shape etc on the spot while giving many considerations. So that the making process is step by step.
(Sound somewhat out of context, you may think though) The Buddhist’s approach is the later. Lord Buddha loathe to rely on the imagination, hence he didn’t teach notions, even not rely on the words. Because he taught the Karma = everything exists and moves following the Karma. The sign or agent of the Karma are on front of us and they are keep changing moment to moment. Perceive all those Karma and intuitively follow them will be the least troublesome life we can have. (Intuitive mean, without having “thinking” self = Selfless = be in the Void = with Dharma) This is the reason why we have to deal with the things on front of us. If not on there, its mean, it exists in the thinking or imagination. So, to make a thing on the spot, while finding the precise dimension and the requirement is the right approach to do. (It’s not against the nuclear scientists designing particle collider — we may not able to see the particles or tela gauss magnetic force by our eyes still, they are there. = Scientists intuitively count its effect in.) —– In this world, there is no ideal remedy or solution (which was a product of imagination or fantasy) but only practical measure applied on the spot, moment to moment. (You might have seen or remember that all the so-called “ology / ism” has been bankrupted leaving immeasurable destruction behind ! )
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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.)
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Appropriation
The controller I made to create a Focus-shift effect for the photos was using
the battery case from the discarded Canon G9 camera together with its battery
= NB-2LH.
What I needed was much smaller battery though, other choices were the
battery for Lumix camera but they are 3.7v (it needs to be more than 5v)
otherwise AAx4 or AAAx4 type. —–> I settled to the Canon battery.
As the brand-name suggests, it was a well made battery system = easy
to use and could last for ever kind. (I mean the case, not the battery itself) 🙂
Commonly used among the Canon cameras,
the battery retaining latch was well designed
and made.
—– think, if I had to design this kind myself,
what would I make and need to work ?
= conclusion = if it IS already there, why not
use it straight. It could save
all the hustle, still it cost nothing. 🙂 = This is called appropriation.
— this word gives pretty bad impression though, think about, is there
ANYthing we are NOT appropriating for our life.
= All the foods were happen to be there, not necessary to be eaten by us.
= We are just appropriating its edible character and its existence. (Only a food
we are not killing for us to eat IS the humble salt.)
—– Give a thought or two, have we human being ever contributed to a survival of
this planet and its life form ANY good ?
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Even an electrical component which was a human invention, still I didn’t make
= I’m just using it. Isn’t this, an appropriation of its character and the function ?
There are two types of the semi-conductors, one would open the gate and allow
the electric current to flow when positive signal was given, other type does open
the gate when negative signal was applied. (they were called NPN or PNP type or
N-channel or P-channel type etc) = We are just utilizing the appropriate type of
component to configure the circuit.
What we call “Landscape photography” is in fact, an appropriation of the natural
(though, sometime man-made) scenery to copy — there is very little opportunity
to create the image out of nothing. —– You may not guessed
what I would write here —– this network of appropriation is indeed, what
Lord Buddha pointed out “the Karma” = nothing could exists by its own.
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