Tony_L's blog

Been sitting in a middle of a field, for the last couple of weeks..... Im so far behind on uploading....

Thanks for the birthday greetings.. It was both mine and Molly's birthday, She's been ours for one year now... 

All images are taken within walking distance of were we are moored...   Still working with the Fuji S3....  Just scanning rolls from the Bronica RF645...

Hope you' are all having fun !!!

This has pretty much clogged up UK traffic.. All of the BBC, on line. on demand.

This episode of dr who is Excellent -- A real spoof -- The Beeb are certainly on a roll here.

The Unicorn and the Wasp

Duration: 45 minutes

In 1926, Agatha Christie disappeared for 10 days. Was it amnesia? A nervous breakdown? Or a giant alien wasp?(Available for 6 more days)

 

hope you enjoy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b00bdjtc.shtml?src=ip_mp

 

Hi ... sorry been printing and getting molly up and running for the season....... Printing.... Finally sorted some decent paper for printing greetings cards , and most importantly at the right price.... its time to play ( more later) Molly.... she is coming together,, Sorted most of the power issues ... And fi- nally got the oil fire heater running ..... sill got a small leak in one of the water tanks,... But she’s up and running... Last year was about not blowing her up... She’s a big expensive complex boat, with lots of complex and very expensive systems...Its a case of slowly getting to know the systems, wiring water etc.... But shes good. And oh so comfortable, So warm...... Weve really got another year down ere on the kennet and avon cannal, Then we start to head towards llangollen Cannal in wales. EEEpc... windows lasted about 4 weeks before it ate its self.... reinstalled linux and its been quite happy ever since.... Not that ive seen it, The Boy has adopted it...And so i aint seen it.... It will come back broke, Oh well thats kids..... Fuji S3..... Have not really used it over last couple of months, wanted to get the bulk of the printing out of the way... I dont know I find it hard to get motivated over digital. Im very impressed with the mono, But not so sure about the colour rendition. Still early days Im gonna shoot exclusively with the s3 for a couple of weeks, Thanks for the comments and favs... ill just upload some images .. then i wanna get and browse what you guys have been upto and amazing images you have been uploading .....

 

 

eeepc upload

www.ipernity.com/doc/tonylegg/1216441

 

EeePC Upload to ipernty

www.ipernity.com/doc/16336/1216441?from=1216441

Using the eeepc to upload images to ipernity --

Note
Linux does not natvely display .jpg thumbnails.. Png yes....have not checked other formats..

works a treat with 6mg image/ camera size (18mg file size).have not tested it with larger camera / image formats.

image manager does not support the Nikon 50 but it does the d80 and more ... however the d50 use SD cards not a poblem... if you were using compact flash yu would need a usb card reader...

all in all the eee performs extremely well in uploading the images,,,, The only snag is not seeing the thumbnail in the bowser wndow... This is a minor problem overall, one that is out weighed by the ability to sit in a cafe and upload the images you shot 60 seconds ago...

next the image manager functions....

to follow....

The Eeepc three weeks on.....

What can I say excellent...

Week one I tried to severely break it...

Loaded windows on ,, this unit has only a 2 gig hard drive, so there anin't a lot of room..
Anyway I managed to get windows down to about 1.2 gig... However it did not take long for it to reclaim that freed memory and more, and then just Locked up and died...I took about an hour, and i didn't put any applications on except, corel lightning 40mg. So it was back to linux...

So I unpacked the image from the cd.. Magic... About 20mins later I was agreeing to asus's licence agreement... new machine... smooth !!!!!

Eee PC.. test

Since then, it has not even been turned off, it goes it to suspension overnight, with the supply disconnected... It uses so little power so there is very little drain on the battery.

Three people use this machine, and I have not heard one squeal from either of them... This is wonderful, , as i can be out of my seat every half an hour dealing with family related windows issues.

The reason I need Linux, is so i don't have to spent my time tinkering and maintaining the operating system.. Ive had thirty years of that... And I cant justify a mac for general web, office and File and image database functions.

I want my systems to just work... If what I am doing is gonna work ( the molly gallery), I need robust computing solutions.. (oops sounding corporate there..)

I know now that the 500 mg of hard drive space available on the eeepc is enough to keep this little machine running indefinately,that is assuming you are using external pen drives, ide Hd's and SD cards, to store your data on.

Its an extremely robust solution. No hard drive, so its pretty indestructible. The speakers act like handless. Aided by its lightness making it the closest i have seen to an electronic book. And at a ridiculously low price.

 

next using the eeepc as a photographic tool....

 

Well here we are 2008.....

hope you had a good christmas....Its gonna be an intresting year..... 

tony

 

Sorry been really tied up with stuff !!!!!

Finally got web access on board... Groovy... Batteries are pretty knacked, but i can run the computer when recharging the batteries.. next step is to replace the batteries..

Temperature is fantastic, last night it was 8 degrees outside, inside it was 25 degree's, with only body heat and candle power... Just as well as this diesel fire will not stay lit !!!!!!!.... I think its time to rip it out and put a wood burner in..

All this Techie " off grid stuff ill take up else where, unless your interested??? it really fascinating stuff...

Thank you for your wonderful comments,, hopefully i can be a bit more "real time "

A poem of the lonely ....................................... " Hello"..................spike miligan RIP

--- Dunno if this is interesting... But !!!!!

mmm what a fantastic week, the sun has come out to play...... yea... Saw a snake swim by the boat yesterday.. fascinating, about 3.5 ft long, I recon he was after eggs.

The swan family have made their way down the canal, the signets which were little balls of fluff with a head sticking out the top, last time we saw them, now they are large birds, there is 4 signets and the two parents, one at the front and one at the rear. no messing with these two.

The harvest is all but over now, So were sailing down to Devises, and then turning around and traveling up to the savanack forest for the autumn... Im looking forward to this.

1 month to go.... well this is when im supposed to be up and running, business wise, well its more of a lifestyle, its an experiment in living. Thing are looking very promising, and all of you have helped me so much in the last six months on flickr. Its all tied up with Molly, She will be our home, shooting platform, and Gallery and also distribution mechanism of cards and prints.. So hopefully a physical outlet for your images, early days yet. More on molly later..

Great Ive just discovered that Ive got a very useful and large ( by my usual setup) Studio space 7 ft by nearly 30 ft, I have not worked on my plantscapes studio shots for nearly 2 years now, Ive been tinkering around with rangefinders,

Methods of working - rangefinders - focusing
The reliance on optical direct methods of focusing like an SLR is how we usually work, however the Rangefinder and direct view cameras, make the mind grasp and learn better the issues of depth of field and distance. For example, usually when i take a picture Ive pre set the exposure with a handheld light meter some time before, and Ive dallied in the distance on the lens. All I have to think about is the composition.. Lenses, mostly I only use one, 45mm for urban and a 28 for landscape. I always prime lenses, and occasionally specialized lenses, its a 80/20 rule.. And i like to travel light.

Hope this is not totally gibberish ... Tony

Ive uploaded some more of the India 89 Album.and some chiled sounds.. Off for a few days on Molly to move her and get some pics.  Have a great weekend and take some fantastic photos.. I think its gonna be raining here. ( still its cosy on the boat, slippery but cosey)

A little happy music for the week end

Relax few tracks to chill to

 Have a great weekend !! ----- tony..

 

I guess were all looking for the ideal camera, well after 30 years i think I've found it. The Bronica 645, its like a fisher price camera, or a large Minolta Himatic.... These cameras are available for silly prices. If your a browsing photographer, love film and looking for the perfect camera. Read this...

Ive always used an a Olimpus XA. One small cute camera, and Ive been using some other old rangefinder cameras for the past three years, a couple of Minolta Himatic's, some old folders, and latterly a mamiya 6X9, which I borrowed.

The camera I was originally looking for was the fuji folding 645.. but reliability problems plagued this camera.. The other option was the Mamiya 6 or 7. The 6 appealed to me. I do love the square format it inspires me. And its cheaper. but I'm still looking at well over 1000 pounds for the camera and wide angle. But one off the big issues for me was reliability, how long will these cameras be serviceable.

However a couple of months ago I came across a Bronica RF 645, for a silly price. Less than a entry level digital SLR body. Funny old world !!!

 

Mike Johnston has reviewed this camera on photo-net -- http://photo.net/columns/mjohnston/column3/

446687692 186d31823f o

Well I must say, the use ability of this camera is excellent  ... The viewfinder and rangefinder are fantastic, so large and bright, the layout is large and elegant by its simplicity, Its just a full manual camera with aperture exposure and program ?... My only niggles are, the exposure compensation which is not lockable, and what totally threw me was the sound of the shutter. I thought the camera was faulty. You fire the shutter then there a quiet scrunching while the shutter cocks. Shutter latency seems good though.

R21 04 07 RF645 Portra160nc 0

A crop of the above image.... mmm im impressed.

R21 04 07 RF645 Portra160nc 0…

The advantages of using med um format in a rangefinder camera for me is :

a) I'm lazy and if I don't have to carry a tripod "great" the less I've got to carry while the more pictures I'm gonna take.

b) The lack of a mirror in a rangefinder means that I can shoot at lower speeds to get a greater depth of field. I'm quite happy to work at a 30th of second and F16 exposure.

c) The larger format is ideal, the quality just oozes from these optics, These images will print extremely large, for example I'm quite happy to work to A3 with my 35mm zeiss lenses so if you extrapolate this by 2.7, which is the increased area of the 645 format film as compared with 35mm, so we end up with print sizes just short of A0.. OK so call it A1. mmmm sweet !!!

d) the increased size of the film means that I can work with higher ASA film and gain the advantage of using the mirror less mechanism of the rangefinder to give me, what 3 or 4 stops advantage over a 35mm SLR.

More reviews
www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/rf645.shtml

 

Pickle hill 9

 

 

Well what a cool site..Its taking me some time to get my head around things here.... but it will give me the chance to pull together the multimedia and photographic projects. to use this site as a warehouse for my various projects.

Molly

The two months living on Molly, has focused my mind on the issues of being off grid.. Some real fundemental issues of lssues of life, heat, light, cooking, cooling, computer access and entertainment.. Which im hoping to pull together here, with my solutions which you may find interesting.

Photography -- is one of the main topics of this blog, disscussing isues technical and other. my gallery archives, the india gallery and plantscapes need to import from flickr.

Poppy field ..

Music --- the audio capabilities here are excellent.. It allow me to access to some of my music available for my friends to listen to..... Im not sure of copyright issues here?.. Any comments would be appreciated. The audio capabibilities is going to allow me to upload my audio widgets and backgrounds. Great !!!