This past weekend’s ‘Full Snow Moon’ was a “micromoon” because of its distance from Earth.
Looks big enough to me.
I’ve been toying with some old equipment in the apparently never-ending search for a solution to my photography future. This including some shots with the Olympus E410 …
Marley, up to her knees in snow.
… and the Sony a6000:
Duncan, getting a move on.
The Olympus is of course an ‘orphaned’ camera now, with fewer than 50 lenses ever made for it and (as far as I know) no adaptors. Even trying to search for four-thirds lenses brings up micro 4/3 results instead. It’s a pity, because that is a nice format for my kind of work – if only they made the equipment affordable. Anyway, the battery is dead; it takes seconds to recharge and minutes to discharge.
I clear the drive, the plough fills it in again. (E410)
The Sony has lens issues too, mainly the affordability factor. As in even a mid-range zoom costs 3X what I paid for the camera, never mind a long one. I thought about getting an adaptor for the EF lenses, but that’s almost as much money as buying the camera again. Besides which it is still difficult for my eyesight to see the EVF. Why can’t they make a big, bright finder? Actually they can, so the question is “why don’t they?”
How is this comfortable?
In an age when butter is $9 a pound, what hope is there? Interestingly it seems prices only go up on things we need to buy every week, like food. And every week the prices go up. Let me check the map again and see if I’m living in Ukraine. Nope; still Canada. Artificial shortages and all-too-real price hikes. Gasoline is back up to $1.69/Litre. Good thing I’m not going anywhere for a while.
Last week was a painfully interesting one, and I’m glad it’s over. Over for now anyway. No word about the future. That’s always the problem, isn’t it? Can’t even get an accurate weather forecast for tomorrow, never mind anything else.
January. Oh boy. Big expenses, difficult journeys, unpleasant occurrences, and a few good things.
A devil or a deer?
The weather was just plain weird, with many days above freezing and some severely below. This included a snowstorm just before the trip to Kam to pick up the Mrs. from the airport. Fortunately I’d just spent Big Money on new tyres. This past weekend, the last of the month, featured another return to -20 which figured largely in the ‘final event’.
Small box, tiny contents, big price tag.
Happy Anniversary to Us was the highlight of the month for sure, even if it wasn’t any big celebration. I don’t like big celebrations anyway. The milestone was the important part. The whole story of ‘Us’ is an odd one, and one day I may tell it. But not today.
Inflamed sky.
There were many pictures taken as I continued to try and adapt my photography to my failing eyesight. I’ve got sort of a plan out of it, and none too soon as the Nikon has come up with a new failing of not focusing except in ‘flower’ (macro) or ‘mountain’ (distant) modes. Usually. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it hunts past ‘in focus’ and can’t get a lock. In a way it would be better if it just locked up completely, instead of continually enticing me to use its fine lens and then not being able to deliver an image.
Have a squid sandwich (bacon butty).
The ‘final event’ (I hope) of the month came on the coldest night (-20C) when my body decided it wanted a trip to the ER in an ambulance. Oh that pain again. You know how when you’re in agony and it seems like eternity is passing but it’s really just a few minutes? I hope you don’t. In fact the pain started at about 10:00 PM, the morphine didn’t touch it, and I was in the hospital before 2:00 AM. So it really was eternity. At least this time I got a good doctor (it’s a roulette game what ER doctor you get these days). There was much discussion about the possible cause, a review of the testing so far, and some question as to why things hadn’t been followed up on. Yeah, I was wondering about that too.
Squeak doesn’t object to Marley using her as a pillow. I can’t imagine why not.
At any rate, January is done and dusted. Now it’s time for February, which I hope will have more positive things in it. Or at least less bad weather? Regardless of that, I have more pictures to post and more to take and plans for many things.
Now if only something catastrophic doesn’t happen and spoil it all. Again.
Here I am practising with the Canon T100 and 55-250mm lens.
Big black bird (raven).Cold sun. Taken through the window on a -34C day, but that’s okay because it’s supposed to be ‘soft’.“Dogs and cats don’t get along.” (Marley & Squeak)Zig-zag. I like a bit of ‘real life abstract’.Bitty brown bird (junco).Light, shadow, texture, pattern.
So what’s the score? One out of every seven pictures shot was ‘acceptable’. Not very good, but an improvement over the Nikon’s one out of ten. The reasons for the improved performance are several: the Canon has a larger, brighter viewfinder which is easier for me to see through (although I still mis-framed shots); its autofocus is faster and more dependable (although again I missed shots because the focus points are little black dots and my eyes have their own ‘little black dots’ built-in); the zoom is a mechanical ring, not motor-driven that sometimes locks up as the Nikon does; the sensor is larger, higher resolution, and not failing; the lens isn’t loose and wobbly.
I miss the Nikon’s excellent (actually better than the Canon’s) lens resolution and its extreme zoom range, though. But it is nice to know the camera isn’t going to just fail randomly as its worn-out predecessor does. The battery lasts longer too. I’ve had the T100 for three years now and bought it to replace the P610, but it was hard to give up a camera that so perfectly fit my shooting needs. Now those needs have changed and I have no choice (many of the shots missed with the Nikon were due to my just not being able to see what I was doing with it).
Next step is to put the fixed focal length ‘prime’ 50mm on it and shoot some more, although I dislike having that limitation. I also need a much longer than 250mm lens for my usual wildlife photography, but that will have to wait for now. (It’s been waiting for three years, what’s a little longer?)
Footnote: it was -40 Thursday morning, but it’s headed for above freezing next week. This weird weather continues to complicate things.
Officially she was “Cloudy”, but I usually called her Puss-puss or just kitty. She had a hard start to life and faced a terrible and short future until she came to us. As it was we weren’t to know she would only have three years in this world. She went from playing kitten to dead in two days, so at least she didn’t suffer long. There is no sure explanation for what took her, although we know from when she was fixed that she had several cysts inside. Perhaps one of them was missed and became cancerous.
About to head back to the cabin for more work. I can’t say “finish up” because that will never happen. Apparently there’s some kind of schedule on the project, but I don’t know what it is. I just know there’s more work to do.
It’s the second day of three days of hot before rain and then cooler temps. If the forecast is accurate, this will be good. For the mosquitoes, not for people.
Spent an insane amount of money yesterday getting more supplies because everything is so damn expensive these days. Had to buy 40 litres of gasoline as well as put 50 in the Xterra’s tank and two tanks of propane. Never mind the $100 dropped at the hardware store – just for six pieces of trim, a can of paint, and some glue. Food? Yeah, bought some of that too.
Mowed lawn, somewhat, and planted bushes the Mrs. got for some unknown reason. They’ll probably die.
Much to do, much to do, much to do. Try not to die while doing it.
Here’s a little dash cam clip from coming home last time. Watch the for the surprise at the end:Â Rough Road
BTW, I worked on my ‘updated’ computer and managed to get the UEFI cracked open to where it will look at a bootable USB drive. Except I haven’t found a version of Linux that will actually boot up yet. It doesn’t help that the creating program, Rufus, doesn’t look like the on-line instructions anymore and most of the “how to” info out there is out of date for both the hardware and software and therefor unhelpful. You’d expect the latest distros to work but … no. I’ll keep poking at it until it does. Damn Microsoft anyway. As it is I’m still using the old machine with the defective hardware that crashes, jams, doesn’t boot, et cetera on a random basis. Reliable it ain’t.
Despite a lack of co-operation from the weather and increasing pressure to do things other than photography I managed to fire off a few shots with the G11. To my delight it is still easy to use even with my failing eyesight. For one thing it has an optical viewfinder which remains bright (unlike the Nikon P610’s dimming EVF) even if partially obstructed by the lens barrel at wide focal lengths. Oh yes, the camera has limitations in that department, but few in any other! The CCD sensor renders great tonal range, the ISO goes down to 80, the lens is sharp enough for general purposes, and the exposure is correct (although I prefer -1/3 EV setting).
As the saying goes, the proof is in the photos!
A beautiful day at the lake. We’ll be seeing fewer of these as Autumn rolls in. At least the fire smoke is mostly gone now.Lakeweed. Nice detail for a point-n-shoot camera!The great tonal range of the CCD sensor translates into a wide array of gray tones when desaturated!This particular type of camera is best at taking pictures of objects. Dogs are objects. If you object to dogs, get a cat.Here: one standard-issue cat, in box, with accessory toys.If you’re willing to put a little effort into it, the G11 is capable of artistic shots as well.
I am so keeping this camera! Best $12 I ever spent! I could probably get pictures out of it without eyesight.
Speaking of which, I see the doctor again on Thursday. I look forward to mentioning the continued pain, blurriness, spots, and weariness. I don’t look forward to hearing what he has to say because I have a pretty good idea what that will be.
First the good news; one of the missing cats, Hannibal, has returned! I happened to look out the window and there he was sitting on the deck. Appears to be none the worse for his four day adventure, except for an insistence on going out again. That’s not happening, big furry cat.
The bad news; wild fires have broken out all around, thanks to the thunderstorms last night. The air smells of smoke, the sky looks of smoke, and the nearest one is at the next lake over – just five kilometers away.
As seen from above.
This satellite view taken at about 4:30 PM Wednesday off Zoom Earth shows the cloud formations from the two largest fires. The one on the left you can follow the smoke trail down to the Lytton fire, and the one on the right leads down to the Kamloops fire. The shadow on the right is caused be the density of the smoke clouds, and they look white because of reflecting the sun back to the satellite. From beneath they are dark and grey-brown.
Raven lamenting.
The ugly part is that we don’t have much to celebrate in Canada this year. The revelation of the horror that was the residential schools has justifiably put a damper on all the good news, even the advances made against the pandemic. For those who don’t know, these “residential schools” were authorized by the government and operated largely by the Catholic church. For over 100 years, right up into the 1990s, they essentially kidnapped native children and abused them in some delusional effort to integrate them into mainstream society. What they really did was damage and often kill them. Then they tossed them into unmarked graves like so much garbage. The concept alone is appalling and horrific. The way they carried it out is akin to the Holocaust. Really. That this happened under what should have been the watchful eye of a supposed modern-day democracy rather than some ancient civilization or evil dictatorship only emphasizes how horrible it was. I don’t know where we go from here, but the road will be long and difficult.
As always, I concentrate on the little things I have some control over. Slowly work progresses, and I try not to think about the fact it may all burn down soon.
We are currently experiencing a historically unprecedented heatwave here in BC. Records are being set daily, including Lytton giving Canada a new all-time high of 49.5C/121F. Here at the cabin we’ve hit 41, which is the hottest it’s ever been here. The heat is supposed to break tomorrow, with thunderstorms. This brings up another problem: lightning. We already have two large, out-of-control wildfires burning not too far away. The smoke cast a haze in the air here this morning. Welcome to Hell.
In fact I’ve only been able to work a couple of hours in the morning before it gets too hot to do anything. I’ve not been going out unless absolutely necessary, and we don’t even let the dogs stay out for long. It’s a case of “just get through this”.
Some bad news: two of our cats have gone missing and the outlook for them is not good. There is water and prey out there if they can find it, but …
Few photos being taken, due to the heat. But here are a few.
Queen of the Hill (look close).Robin on the nest.New flower. I don’t know what it is; never seen one before.Robin’s egg blue. I quite like this pic.
Beyond the immediate area many things are happening. BC’s state of emergency will finally be lifted July 1, and many rules relaxed including mandatory mask requirements. I will wait until my 2nd shot (on Friday) has had time to take effect before I doff the N95. Unless I have to keep wearing it against wildfire smoke. *sigh* I’m used to that.
Boots, the best poser.Hannibal, who’s a bit goofy.Squeak, who tends to be camera shy.Misfit aka Puss-puss aka Copycat aka the new cat whose name hasn’t been settled on.
Where was I? Wednesday. Well it doesn’t matter. The week continued to be awful. Temperatures didn’t quite hit -40, the point where Fahrenheit and Celsius meet, but they came close. It has been so relentlessly cold that there have been problems.
For one thing, the logging trucks were having trouble. Very cold, dense air messes with a diesel’s ability to produce full horsepower. I shan’t bother with the engineering lecture, just suffice to say they were struggling with their loads. I crawled into town behind a couple of them that couldn’t make any speed. Some of them gave up and limped home. Repeated running in these conditions can cause damage, in fact. It’s hard enough on gas engines, worse on diesels.
A running logging truck.
Or electric motors. Jojo now has a dashboard full of warning lights ablaze, the least of which is reporting that the tire pressures are all well below minimum thanks to the cold shrinking the air inside them. That can be fixed with warmer air and a compressor. I’m more worried about the “!” light and the engine symbol being lit. I suppose I’ll have to try a code scan and see what turns up. Not certain it will work on the hybrid, though; that probably requires a special scanner especially as you’re not supposed to start the engine when scanning and Jojo starts when she wants to.
Toyota wisely is not jumping on the “All-Electric” bandwagon. They recognize that some people live in places where battery power alone is not sufficient. People like me. Turning on Jojo just two days after the last run in this arctic cold reveals her main battery depleted significantly just because of the temperature drop. Now imagine if the only power source to draw from was that. Oh it might be fine while the weather was above zero (Fahrenheit – it’s a better scale. Accept that as fact and move on.) Or if you could plug it in like the newer designs and pre-charge/warm it. Or if you didn’t have far to go; there are no electrics now that would make it from here to Kamloops and back on a single charge, and that’s in Summer. Of course as a battery ages its performance will fall off even more. This is a matter of physics, and there’s no getting around it. The horrible fact is that fossil fuels have high energy density and can be easily transfered in large quantities in a short time. Try shoving the equivalent amount of electrical power through wires that fast and you’ll have a cord glowing like a stove element. BTW, that’s energy wasted; the faster the charge rate the more energy goes to heat instead of work.
Glistening ice.
Along with this fun we have the arrival of the lens adapter I’ve been waiting for since early January. Too bad it’s A). broken and B). not the right thing. You can add C). not worth trying to return and D). a waste of money I didn’t need to lose. I’ve ordered a different one, new, from a different place. But really I’m not spending more on the Mystery Camera as the results have been too disappointing.
The message is snow.
The bookcases showed up. What bookcases? Oh we got some that our Jane found for free and then the ladies worked out how to get them transported from there to here. For once it’s actually something we can use, as having got some of the cabin stuff out of the house there’s room for these to be put up and loaded with books which currently occupy cardboard boxes. We’ve lived here eleven years and haven’t finished unpacking yet. I kid you not. Shows how much we don’t really need that stuff, eh? Oh I have to assemble these bookcases. Fine. I like a project. They’re used and there are no instructions, but that isn’t much of an issue for me. I just hope they’re complete.
One medium-size dog, one extra-large size cat.
What else? Well not many pictures being taken in this miserable cold. Not much of anything going on. No vaccines, although they told us the doses will be four times as many next week. Big deal. Zero multiplied by any number is still zero. Prince Charmless is now trying to beg them from India. How anyone can be such an absolute failure as he is I don’t know. Perhaps he’s a graduate of Trump University, with a Mistress’s degree in Drama.
Blurry at infinity.
One last thing. Today’s pictures were taken with the Mystery Camera. You can probably see the blurriness to the images and the spots on the sensor, but I fixed most of the exposure faults and colour inaccuracies. Not a camera I want to invest more in, which is a shame because were it a good edition it would be quite nice. I think this one was used on an archaeological dig. As a shovel.
Wandering Words 