Drought

The record lack of rain, the unending march of 100+ degree days, the brown grass, the utter death around us...it makes me sad and tired and crushes my spirit.



The "new" camera has made it's first foray into the Texas heat, and brought back a photo I was positive would never get made just days earlier.
I wanted to shoot this dead tree in IR, nothing else would do.

Even with four filters on the end of the lens there still was more vignetting (mostly cropped out) than I expected, but oh yeah this lens goes to 28mm-e versus 38mm. That explains, and it's not a problem at all.
Neither is purple fringing. IR doesn't see colors, so I'm immune to it.

My other mission for this camera is flash macros of small critters.
This is another big part of my photography that the DSLR fails at, and I tried many times. I'm not buying a macro lens anytime soon, and the DSLR's inability to use a fast shutter synch makes these other cameras a better choice anyway.

I knocked this out in two minutes using my old techniques, and couldn't be happier with the results.
And with that, my photographic drought is over and I can now do everything I could do before my F717 died, and then some!
I feel complete for the first time in a year.

I'm very excited to be able to plug these holes in my repertoire.
And the size, grip, weight, and black finish make me feel like I'm holding a real camera--this thing is a tank compared to the F717!
Looks enough like a DSLR that I won't have to take any crap from camera snobs.

I Had The Most Amazing Day

One year and 3 days ago my first digital camera died for the last time.
I was heartbroken, panicked, sick to my stomach, devastated, etc.

As usual, Sylvia came to my rescue and within two weeks I had my beloved Sony Alpha300. It's a great camera, and is so much more advanced than the Sony F717 I was using that it took over a month to feel comfortable taking pictures again--so much to learn!

But my Alpha300 is a fairly standard consumer-grade camera, while my late F717 was state-of-the-art when it was introduced and had some features that aren't popular enough today to have been retained.
Mainly, the ability to take photos in the infrared spectrum instead of visible light with the addition of a few filters that screw onto the end of the lens.
I was just getting good at IR photography when my F717 crapped-out, and it was a major blow to my mood and sales.

For some strange reason I woke up at 9am (noon is more my style) and it's a good thing I did!
The US Postal Service truck in the street convinced me to put on pants and answer the doorbell.
I signed for a box from Toronto

On the right is my dead-meat F717.
On the left is it's improved successor, the F828, sent to me by my internet friend Matthew Robertson.

In addition to being able to shoot IR (again) this camera also takes much higher quality video, has a wider range of lens focal lengths, is built studlier than my older version. It's been improved in many areas and was pretty much the best digital camera in 2003.

How do you thank someone for sending you an awesome camera that gets you back in the infrared game?

Might as well send the flash, too?
You can see that the flash for my old camera had but a single power switch, while the HVL-F32X flash Matthew sent me has an LCD sceen and lots of buttons for more control.
I missed being able to shoot flashed macros of small animals (my Alpha300 system won't support this unless I buy an expensive new macro lens) so I'm also excited to renew this ability!

This level of kindness is not unknown to me, but is the exception rather than the rule for so-called 'internet friends', meaning people you have never met but get along with on the www.
My IR filter was a gift from Bruce, and my older Sony flash was shipped down to Texas from WA by C.Moore--also gratis.

The only way I know how to thank such kind people is to make the best use of their gifts as possible.
Let them see that what they gave to me is being used to produce better photos.
It's a challenge, but I'm ready to accept it.

Thank You, Matthew!!!

Busy Week

Has it really been a week since my last post?
Sorry.
I worked 5 events with 3 bands and am physically and mentally spent.

Usually photos taken at gigs aren't shown here, but I'm making an exception because this is more about cameras and my good luck at having his LCD screen look so good on the first try:



Big things are brewing in the very near future, but all I care about is getting myself somewhere cool to take pictures.

Flattery Or Theft?

Sylvia was taking a little quiz on Facebook tonight, and while showing me the results I spotted something:

She didn't believe me at first when I said "That's MY f-ing picture! I took that! What the hell is it doing there?"
She said "show me" and I did, and after comparing the way the crops and exposures match exactly we are confident that it is indeed my photo.

A little more sleuthing (that's french for Google) and I turned up a likely chain of events.
Whoever picked the pictures for the Facebook quiz probably got mine from this website, which shows up on page 2 of Google Image search for Corpus Christi:

In this one you can even see that the meager clouds on the left side match, which is as conclusive as it gets.
RockFreakingSolid Proof, my friends.

If you expand the search criteria, my own Flickr page shows up on page 2:


And here is my Flickr page of the photo.
You can see that this photo has been viewed at least 3777 times--it's one of my most popular.
It's in "Explore", meaning it was among the top 500 "most interesting" photos uploaded to Flickr that day, out of literally millions.

The real estate website didn't ask for my permission to use that photo, so they are in violation of my copyright and if I felt like suing I would win.
Since they are using it to sell real estate, the monetary damages might even be worth the effort.
I have the original, plus all the ones taken before and after with minor adjustments. No court could possibly rule against me unless they were crooked or stupid. (I know...)

Whoever put together the Facebook quiz is also stealing from me, but I think they just grabbed it from the first thief.


Will I take any action?
Probably not, beyond a message letting them know what's happening and a request that I receive a photo credit if they want to keep using it.

But this was the trigger I have been waiting for.
I've always said that when I catch someone stealing a photo of mine for commercial purposes is the day I start putting a very visible copyright tag on all of my uploads--I already do with my band shots, but now I'm afraid that everything I blog will have a bit of ugly in one corner.

I hope you can forgive me.

It's The 4th Of July--America Celebrates

Burgers, hot dogs, potato salad, yum!
Family, fireworks, beer, yum again!

We decided to try "ghetto fireworks" by parking on the side of the road near a public display--it was less than a mile away.
I'm sure Dave knows exactly where we were.

It was hot, dusty, and fire ants or something were biting our feet.
Power lines, streetlights, a fence, and a lack of interesting subject matter on the ground limited my camera work to what you see here.
Check my archives for better stuff in 2006-7?

You need a tripod and manual camera control.
I found that a shutter speed of 1 second at f7.1 and iso100 worked for me.
Tungsten white balance gives the most accurate colors, in my opinion.

Happy Birthday USA!
Our founding fathers were some seriously smart guys.
We would do well to read what they wrote and try to get back to their original ideas of how this country should be.

Spanish Mauser FR-7

Take a look at this first photo closely.
(Click on it)
Looks like an early type of military assault rifle, complete with flash hider at the muzzle, a protected front sight that's adjustable for both windage and elevation, and a bayonet lug underneath.

Not at all the kinds of features typically found on a bolt rifle using a Mauser action designed in 1893!
I bought this oddball at a gun show in the mid-'90s for $65. I was looking for the more desireable FR-8 model ($150 at the time) but other collectors had already beat me to them and the supply had dried up, so I settled for this FR-7.
The seller had probably taken it in a trade since he didn't know anything about it, and apparently neither did the dozens of chumps who had handled it before me.
There was serious damage to most of the moving parts from assclowns trying to work the bolt as if it were a modern Ruger or Browning or Remington.
In fact, the bolt was fully retracted when I found it and the dealer told me he didn't know how to close it!
I did, but played dumb and spent a few minutes looking over the condition while pretending to try and figure it out.
Then I stuck my finger in it and pushed down the badly gouged magazine follower so I could close the bolt.
I told him it was kind of interesting but couldn't possibly be a serious rifle.
And that it had damage here and here and especially here.
Offered half of what he wanted and let him think he got the extra $15 through his shrewd bargaining skills.

Here you can see that the rear sight is a rotating disk with apertures at various heights above the bore.
This was designed to emulate then-recently adopted CETME assault rifle that Spain had chosen in the early 1950s. The German H&K G-series are more recent CETME-types.
Since their economy and political situation was very bad after WWII it was difficult to aquire enough of the new rifles to outfit the Army, Air Force and Navy with sufficient numbers as it was, let alone divert a bunch for training purposes, so Spanish armories modified existing M1916 (FR-7) and M43 (FR-8) Mausers to a configuration that was similar enough, and these rifles also found use in the Guardia Civil which would be a close approximation of our National Guard.
They modified the original wood stocks (some of which are very nice pieces of wood like mine) and put on new barrels chambered for the then-new 7.62mm NATO cartridge still in use today for machine guns and special purpose rifles half a century later.
The popular commercial .308 cartridge is very similar but has slight dimensional and pressure differences that make it a bad choice for the FR-7, but is considered safe for the FR-8.
I've put 20 rounds of .308 through this rifle without blowing myself up, but am planning to work a trade using some 1955-vintage Lake City Arsenal M2 ammo (.30-06) I have for some true 7.62 NATO.

There is also the problem of the parts I had to replace.
The bolt was heavily damaged, as was the magazine follower, and the safety, bolt shroud, cocking piece, ejector, extractor, firing pin...hell, I had to replace everything that moves.
Now that I have my hands on this rifle again I'm trying to get it back to shooting condition.
It kicks like a mule but is one of the truly unique guns of the last century and I want to contribute to the knowledge base so others can benefit from my research and testing.
Fusil Reformado 7