Camera control via WiFi

My newest DSLR is a Canon 77D that I got for my birthday.  Among its many awesome features it has built in WiFi with NFC to allow connection to a mobile device.

The other day, I tried a new technique where I used the Canon EOS Utility to make a wireless tether connection between a laptop and the camera.  With the EOS Utility, I was able to set the camera on a tripod at ground level and take a series of shots at different focal lengths.  Here's the result of my first attempt:

This was created from a 9-shot focus stack.

I used to be able to do this sort of thing using MagicLantern on my EOS T2i, but there's no current support for it on the 77D.  With the EOS Utility, I can control the focus from my laptop in increments.  While not automatic like MagicLantern, I do get to see what the camera is seeing on the screen of my laptop.  The software even allows for 5X zoom to make fine focus even easier.

I had been able to do some of this previously using the Canon Camera Connect app on my iPhone or iPad but the focus control wasn't as easy for me.  Maybe I'll play around with that some more and report on the results later.

Good Angels/Bad Angels

I was a "volunteer" for Team Connect, which helps incoming students get connected to basic IT services on moving-in day last Saturday.

I surreptitiously snapped this picture of my co-worker, Andrew Ballard, from my iPad.  I liked the positioning of the background people behind his shoulders.  They look like they're whispering in his ears.

Variation on a theme:

Computer Archeology

I had my DNA sequenced by 23 and Me a while back, and I was surprised to get a couple of messages from a 2nd cousin and a possible 4th cousin.

This led me to trying to find a printout of a family tree that my brother had compiled some time before he died in June 2005.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find the printout, but I found something better:  a 3.5" floppy with the family data.  That's when I discovered that my 3.5" floppy drive (yes, I still have one) had died.   That sent me on a scavenger hunt at work, trying to locate a portable drive that I could borrow.  I struck pay-dirt with my supervisor, who knew of a couple of 3.5" USB floppy drives that LAN Services used to use for flashing updates.

It took a bit of coaxing to get my Windows 10 computer to recognize the drive, and then I was further stymied by the data.  The disk had a single data file:  Olynyk.FTW.   The FTW file extension was something used by Family Tree Maker.   But then, things got crazy complicated.

First, Family Tree Maker software costs something on the order of $80.  Then, it was a matter of the FTW file being in a very old, circa 2004 data format.

Fortunately, I was able to locate a free, downloadable installation file for Family Tree Maker version 4.0 for Windows 95 (May 15, 1997).  I have a copy of VMWorkstation on my work PC, so I first tried installing Windows 95 on it from an ISO image.   This was a non-trivial task, because in order to install the Windows ISO I first had to have an image file of a bootable DOS disk.

When I finally got Windows 95 installed, I was further hamstrung with various incompatibilities.  The USB drivers were not native to Windows 95, and connecting to the Internet with Windows 95 was a real bear.   I finally gave up on Windows 95 and installed a Windows 98 virtual machine.   That allowed me access to the  the internet.  I still had trouble with the USB floppy drive, but I burned the data file to a CD (talk about a waste of space!), which worked with Windows 98.

I loaded and installed the ancient version of Family Tree Maker, read in the Olynyk.FTW data file and then exported it to a more portable GEDCOM format.  With internet access, I was able to log into FileLocker.wvu.edu and upload the data file.

With that data, I was able to use a free Family Tree Builder program that runs on Windows 10.

I've been working with computers for 35 years, but I didn't appreciate until now how evanescent old data formats could be. 

I guess anything I have on old computer tape is pretty much lost forever.  And thank goodness that I don't have anything left on punch cards!

Post Script:  Success!

I can't leave well enough alone.  I re-installed Windows 95 and got the internet thing.

Big surprise:  IE 3.0 has a bitch of a time resolving web pages -- even Microsoft's.

Going Retro

Late last year, I got the itch to go retro and started looking at old film cameras.  On the ShopGoodwill.com site, I took a chance on an untested Zeiss Icon Nettar 515/16.  It's the second one on this page.  What I got for about $22 was a NICE old camera that takes 6x6 cm pictures on 120 film.

Although I wasted no time in getting some black & white film and trying it out, I was slow in finally getting the film processed.  TheDarkRoom.com was a site that came recommended to me, and they are one of the few places that handle 210 film.  Part of the process includes scanning the negatives and posting the images online for you to download.  Price determines the resolution of the scan.  

This camera is seriously manual.   You have to remember to wind it every time you shoot, ergo:

That's the old Morgantown Ordinance Works on the other side of the Monongahela River.   They used to make heavy water there as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II.

Here's one that came out a little better:

Other than a little spot removal, this is pretty much straight out of the camera.  I used Ilford HP5 black & white film at 400 ISO.  I'm sort of familiar with that film, because the Ilford preset is one of my favorite settings in the Silver Efex Pro suite by Nik.  I'm probably being snobbish here, but the real thing is so much better than the simulation.

Now that I've broken the ice, I can't wait to try this camera out some more!

Something from the Oven

Took a recent set of pictures of the Henry Clay iron furnace at Coopers Rock State Park.  This isn't quite an HDR shot.  Rather, it was created with an Adobe Lightroom plugin called LR/Enfuse.

LR/Enfuse does a nice little trick with a number of bracketed shots, creating a well-balanced lighting effect without the intensity of a high dynamic range picture.

While shooting there, I met a photographer from Pittsburgh, who was also shooting the furnace.  We swapped lenses, so I got to try his Tamron 28-80 mm lens.

I learned that this opening has a special name -- it's called a tuyere. That's the name for an entry through which the blast of air enters a furnace.  If you're interested, here's where I got my old iron furnace anatomy lesson:  http://www.oldindustry.org/OH_HTML/OH_Buckeye.html#Description.

Chinese Measels

An Ars Technica article. NSA report shows China hacked 600+ US targets over 5 years, features a map, which shows the more than 600 sites around the continental U.S. that have been hit by Chinese hackers.

Can you spot WVU on this map?  I knew you could.

It looks like North Dakota is the only "safe" place in this country if you want to live off the grid.

It's not dead yet

Came across an article in The Guardian yesterday (Thursday 28 May 2015) by Dorian Lynskey. Titled How the compact disc lost its shine, the article is an epitaph for the compact disk, 1985-2015.

I'm not going to get into the whole thing here.  Something in the article, however, led me to recall an artifact from the early 80s that I bought at a used record store.  It's a CBS Records Compact Disc Demonstration CD.

Here's a scan of a part of the insert:

The jewel case cover is on the right, and as you can see, it's been defaced a bit by the previous owner, with assorted scratches and pen scribbles.  The CD itself has minor scuffing, but it's still quite playable.

Googling the CD title turned up some interesting things.

MJJCollectors.com, a site for collectors of Michael Jackson ephemera, mentions the CD here.  It says that the CD is from USA, which isn't quite correct.  It was made in Japan, but it was sent to radio DJs in the USA as a promotional item.

Sent to select USA radio stations in 1983 by "CBS Records", this 21 track promo-only CD was one of the first compact discs ever made in the USA. Features Michael's first appearance on a compact disc format in the USA. Track #19 is "Thriller."

Another site, Top40MusiconCD.com, posts a forum discussion that mentions the Electric Light Orchestra song Don't Bring Me Down, which appears on the compilation.

The very old promo disc CBS Records Compact Disc Demonstration (1983) runs at 115.2 BPM throughout, and sounds a little dull, but only a little.

And here's an entry from SearchingForAGem.com, which talks about Bob Dylan songs.  Under the 1983 heading, I found this entry:

Bob's contribution to this very rare demonstration disc (intended for the US market but actually made in Japan) is Just Like A Woman from Blonde On Blonde.

Thanks to Hans Seegers for information and scans. Thanks to "Ranger Granger" for dating this as 1983, it was given away with some of the first CD players sold in the USA.

I searched on eBay, and I found under completed items that some discerning buyer had paid $25.49 for a copy of this CD.  Granted, the insert paper was in much better condition than the one that I scanned in above.  However, my copy of the CD itself appears to be in much better condition.

The wheels are starting to turn.

Dino-Chicken

Back almost a year ago, I posted this shot of a chicken pondering its inner Rex:

Little did I know that my snarkiness was already passe, as witnessed by this December 22, 2011, piece in LiveScience:  How to Make a Dino-Chicken (Infographic).

Now, it is said, we're half way there: Dino-Chicken Gets One Step Closer.

I'm glad they're working with little 'ol chickens.  Imagine what an order of those chick wings would look like!

You can keep the tail, though.  Even though Anthony Bourdain says  "...chicken ass is the best part. You can get it at any [Japanese] Yakatori joint. It's fatty and delicious."

Sure.  Send them to Japan.

Olloclip Macro 3-in-1

The Olloclip Macro 3-in-1 lens kit is something that Santa gave me this year.  I haven't had a lot of time to explore its capabilities, but it looks like something that I can have fun with.

Here's something that I shot with it last night:

My best guess is that this is a male Nursery web spider (Pisaurina mira), lurking on my basement wall.

The Olloclip Macro 3-in-1 comes with a clip that mounts on a bare iPhone 5s.  The clip is reversible,  sporting a 7x lens and a doubler on one side, and a 21x lens on the other side.  They give you a little cone that fits over the 21x lens so that you can quickly focus by laying the cone against your target.

The kit also comes with an extra cone, a couple of lens caps, and a little black sack in which to carry everything.

As I mentioned, the Olloclip only fits on a bare iPhone, so you need to remove your phone from any case that you're using.  For me, this was a Pelican Pro Gear Protector case, which fortunately is easily removable.  Right now, I'm going without the case, but I think that I'll be using the case again soon and will just carry the clip with me for when I'll need it.

Another feature of the Olloclip is that it covers the flash.  This isn't too big a problem, because the camera works pretty well with natural light.

Something else that I have only begun to explore is the Olloclip iPhone app, which

provides features such as a Mesh Editor, Macro Mode, Slo-Mo video, and many others. Our Photo Stabilizer Mode and Macro viewfinder will help you refine your focus to get the best shot with less effort.

I hope to be making more use of the Olloclip 3-in-1 in the coming year.

Crash Course

I read today that they're going to make fatter crash test dummies in the U.S. in order to keep up with  increasing obesity trends.

Not to let a stupid idea pass, I figured that it was time for another book:

 

I can't believe how much I've forgotten about using Adobe Illustrator.  It's a wonder that I could do this much.

Shut Up Siri

A Read/WriteWeb article today, 'Shut Up Siri, I'm Driving!' AAA Issue Apple iDevice Warning, hit a nerve for me.  It cites a AAA article (PDF), which gives Siri a high rating for "mental distraction while driving."

Since upgrading to iOS 8 on my iPhone, I've taken advantage of one of its new features that lets you open a conversation with Siri when the phone is tethered to a power supply.

The phone in my car is already linked to a third-party bluetooth device that gives me hands-free voice capability.  But that capability only extended to my being able to answer the phone with the click of a button on my steering wheel.  The new iOS 8 feature lets me activate Siri by saying "Hey Siri."  When Siri wakes up, I can then say "Dial SoAndSo, Home (or Mobile)" and initiate a call.

That's a nice new feature, but it does have its frustrations.  Maybe its because of sporadic net lag, but sometimes Siri is just slow and dumb.  Like last night, while I was driving, I took my eyes off the road for a moment to confirm that Siri was indeed engaged.  The phone is mounted on top of my dashboard, so it's not like I'm totally distracted.   I got frustrated that Siri was being slow to respond to my voice command, and I called Siri impolite names.

According to the article,

The study measured drivers’ reaction time with equipment such as instrumented test vehicles and heart-rate monitors. Although Siri is hands-free and eyes-free, drivers using the Apple function to perform a number of tasks experienced some of the most elevated levels of distraction.

Yes, that's it. My interaction with Siri was indeed providing me an elevated level of distraction.  Luckily I don't use Siri frequently and when I do, "she" is not always that dumb and slow.

Magic Lantern

It was a stroke of luck that my Canon 550D/T2i is one of the supported platforms for Magic Lantern, a firmware add-on.  Although initially created for shooting video, a broad array of features have been added for photographers.

I took the plunge this weekend, downloading Stable Release v2.3.  I  formatted a spare SD card and copied over to it a binary autoexec file and the FIR file for my camera model.  The first attempt to load the firmware failed.  Following instructions, I re-applied the Canon 1.0.9 firmware and tried again.  This time it took.

One of the amazing things about the Magic Lantern firmware is that it does not replace the stock Canon firmware.  It runs alongside it.

The hardest part was figuring out how to use the new features.  My killer app was the automated focus stack.  It probably took an hour of experimentation before I finally got it right.  With the camera on a tripod, I start in Live View, which seems to be an essential aspect for using Magic Lantern.  After focusing in on a starting point, you enter Magic Lantern by pressing the Trash button on the camera.  This brings up the Magic Lantern menu.  From there, I go to the Focus menu and select Focus End Point.  This takes me back to Live View, where I use manual focus buttons to set the final focus point for the stack.  Back once again to the Focus menu of Magic Lantern, and I start the Play mode for Focus Stack.  From there, the firmware takes over operation of the camera, shooting the series and changing the focus with each shot.

Here's one of my better results, taken with an eight-shot sequence:

This shot is actually a small portion of a much larger picture.  I just liked the composition of this little group.   I don't know what the flowers are, but they are quite tiny, somewhat resembling yarrow in size.

Magic Lantern is going to open up a lot of new possibilities for my photography!

Kudos to UnitedCamera

A few weeks ago, my Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM lens bit the dust. After several years of service, being backpacked while I biked around, the focusing mechanism failed on me.

I went on the web and got a price quote from this repair place called UnitedCamera.  Their basic "Repair and Calibration" service was $94, which seemed to include the necessary repairs.  Return shipping was part of the fee.  I packed up the lens and shipped it to them in a small USPS Express Mail box.

Within days, they sent me an email, informing me that they received the lens.  They gave me a confirmation number and a URL at which I could track the status of the repair.  In a period of a day, the status went from going to a technicians desk to "repair parts on order."  That last part took most of a week, and then suddenly it was repaired an being shipped back to me.  Since return shipping was part of the repair fee, I fully expected snail mail.  What a surprise to see that it came 2-day USPS Priority.   I got it back this Saturday.

I'm a happy camper.  The lens is working like new.  I've resolved to treat it more kindly.  Don't know how I'll transport the camera and lens if/when I go biking again, but I'll have to come up with something better.

Need a lens repair?  I wholeheartedly recommend UnitedCamera.

The Web the Way You Want It

This Internet Explorer 4.0 Cross-Platform CD turned up in a box of AOL disks that were in my basement.  The CD is still in its original shrink wrap.

Wikipedia has quite a bit to say about IE 4.  This distribution was an early salvo in the browser war between Microsoft and Netscape. 

Something notable about this period piece is written on the back of the CD package.  Notice the spelling of the operating system in the second bullet item.

I'm Melting!

Was following the steps on a PhotoShop tutorial at work this morning when both monitors suddenly went blank on me.  It was finally determined that my AMD Radeon HD 6450 graphics card had failed.  A visual inspection confirms this:

We weren't quite sure if this saddle shape on the heat sink is normal, but a quick peek at a co-workers machine confirmed that this sucker is supposed to be straight across.

Three Legs Good

After several years of service, my trusty Dolica ProLine tripod got a broken leg release lever while I was down in Florida.  I tried to epoxy the lever back in place, but the weld could not stand the strain of use.  At first I thought that I could replace the leg -- replacement would cost around $20.  But I figured that with the age of the tripod, it could be a matter of time before another latch broke.  Reluctantly, I left the tripod behind in my mother's garage.

In shopping for a replacement after I got home, I was divided over buying a new Dolica or upgrading to something a bit more professional, such as the Manfrotto line.  Thinking I could save a few bucks, I looked around on eBay and found a nice looking Bogen Manfrotto 3221W.  That particular model has been discontinued, but it had great reviews.

The "W" in the model number indicates that this a wilderness model intended for wildlife and nature shooting.   Right up my alley.

The 3221W arrived at my home yesterday, and the first thing that struck me was the weight of the unit: ~six pounds!  Fortunately, this came with a nice carrying strap, and the weight on my shoulder is not all that bad.  I thought the "wilderness" designation emphasized its portability, but now I realize that it is really for its ruggedness.  This thing is build like a Soviet tank!

Here's an ersatz Polaroid shot of the legs with the bottom part of the carrying strap in place.  The release levers are solid.  The whole thing is solid.

 

 I'm also a little disappointed that this model doesn't have the low-angle adapter that is featured on the newer units.  For macro work, I'll have to either mount the camera upside-down on the center column or really splay the legs out.  Still, I can't wait to give this a try.  The real test will be in how I can transport this thing when I go biking.

Morning Buzz

I'm still experimenting with the Lensbaby Composer.  The Lensbaby web site has macro converters available, but I discovered that Canon's EF25 extension tube works quite well.  Here's an unadjusted picture of  Buzz Lightyear taken through the extension tube:

I had to take the tube off to get more Buzz in the picture:

Lensbaby

Got a new toy to play with.  It's a  commercial tilt-shift lens called a Lensbaby Composer.  This particular model has been discontinued in the U.S., being replaced by the much more expensive Composer Pro.

I'm quite happy with the plain old Composer, thank you.  I think it's more than adequate for my needs and ability.  It comes with an assortment of apertures that you drop into place on top of the lens.  They are held in place magnetically.  The wider the aperture, the more pronounced the blur.

You shoot this thing in aperture priority mode, and the camera more or less sets the speed to 1/60 sec.  Here's a sample shot at f 2.8, using the built-in flash.

There are No Unknowns

I've begun using Microsoft's Lync at work recently. It's Monday, and my threshold for amusement has been significantly lowered, which might explain why I thought that this was funny:

It makes me think of the classic Donald Rumsfeld quote:

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know." 

—United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, Feb. 2002

An Unexpected Jest

I don't often bother reading the details behind the latest updates on my iPad apps.  This one, however, from the International Movies Database caught my eye:

"Bug fixes.  Nasty tricksy bugsies.  We hates them!"