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Sonoma Plaza Combo Swirl

Dessert!

Made a trip to Cardenas Market. Got a super burrito w/ pollo, beans, rice, guacamole, sour cream and tomatoes. And a grande Orchata. Ate half and froze half. Also picked up some beautiful fruit (the real thing, not a twink) and made a gorgeous fruit salad glazed with Greek yogurt. A big wedge of flan, which I'll have tomorrow and eggs, queso, veggies and Honduran chorizo, for a lovely South of the Border omelet tomorrow morning, along with some pappas frito. I really love that store! And usually learn a few new Spanish words to take home with my haul. Sorry, no pics.

Our own (Brit) spread at Roche winery.

R5 Mk II arrived yesterday, and by "arrived" I mean I drove to the post office and picked the damn thing up. The camera body is comparatively small and lightweight vs an equivalent DSLR. The 5D IV with its battery grip feels like a hulking behemoth in comparison. Even the 5D classic a chonker next to the R5. Funny how much bulk a pentaprism adds. The R5's UI is ...Canon. I had to figure out how to enable shutter activation when "no lens is attached" to use my manual focus glass. From the get go, the R5 pestered me relentlessly to set it up with my iPhone. That necessitated making a "MyCanon" account ...which I did on my laptop, with a real web browser and password manager. Then I had to sign into Canon on my iPhone and pair the two devices. The entire process made want to buy a view camera from 1920. I own zero R lenses and probably won't for quite some time. I am totally buying an R mount anamorphic. I started with the Canon EF to R adapter and it did what it said on the tin. The lens I had closest was the 135L, which says more about me than it. For reasons unclear to me, Canon ships their bodies set to fast burst mode. My 30D came that way 20 years ago. Some fussing later, and I had single shot and daylight white balance set (AWB is the devil.) Of course, the first actual keeper shot I took was with my beloved Super-Takumar 35mm F/3.5, a lens design that goes back to the 1950s. My copy is from the 70s and while it's far from perfect lens, I love how it renders things. This marks only the second time I've used the 35mm Takumar with a full frame sensor. Its ass is too fat for EOS bodies and on the 5D IV, it requires mirror lockup and live view to use. I find that workflow to be a miserable PITA, so I only ever used the 35 with my EF-S bodies (of which I have 3 ...for reasons.) While I loved the shots I got with the Tak on a cropped sensor, I knew I was losing out on much of the flavor of the lens by not having it on full frame. It's like own a Mac tube preamp and not using the phono input. The Fotasy M42 to R adapter is very well made. I had to enable the "shoot with no lens attached" setting or the shutter won't work with non-electronic lenses. Of course, the second lens I tested was the 35mm Takumar's 50mm, radioactive, F/1.4 sibling: There are a lot of variants of the F/1.4 Takumar, and mine is among the least desirable. The original 8 element version proved to be too expensive to produce and is a bit of a white whale amongst collectors. Besides being radioactive and yellowing, my version has a terrible coating and makes giant orange hexagon flares. Of all the lenses I own, it might be the one with the most "character." The 50's posterior isn't as bulbous as the 35's, so it's far less invasive inside the camera body and as a result I've shot with it on full frame for years. Before lunch today I had a go with the Nikon F to Canon R adapter (also made by Fotasy.) I have never been good friends with the Nikon lens mount. It's backwards. Also, I have owned precious little Nikon glass over the years. The only ones I shoot with are the mighty 300mm F/4, an excellent 50 F/1.8 I got from a certain 🐵 in 2010(!) and the decidedly mixed 18-200mm VR. Of those, the 300 was the obvious choice. I replicated a shot I took nearly 20 years ago of the house across the pond. Manual focusing a long lens with an EVF takes some getting used to. The R5 has a zoom peek function, but I as of yet haven't figured out how to use it. That's it for now. I'll out some modern electronic AF lenses tomorrow. What a silly idea.

Melvin Sparks' Sparks!

A while back I bought a little widget to make music listening on iPhone less painful. This was before I got my AirPods Pro Max II AKA My Idiot Neighbor's Life Insurance Policy. The unit is a Fiio KA15. It's a tiny thing with a USB-C gozinta and 3.5mm single ended and 4.4mm balanced gozoutas. When I wasn't looking, 4.4mm balanced became the New Hotness. I picked up a 4.4mm Senn cable a while back as part of a larger purchase. Every review says the Fiio works with iPhones. Me: [connects Fiio to iPhone via USB-C to Lightning cable] "See anything?" iPhone: Nuh-uh. Me: What I if I let you upgrade to the new version of iOS you've been after me about for like a fucking month now? iPhone: Dunno, we'll see. Me: [upgrades] iPhone: SUP, bro! You've got liquid glass now. Wanna take a tour? Sure ya do! Check out thi... Me: [tries widget] iPhone: Still nuh-uh. iPhone: Hey, now'd be a GREAT time to finish setting up your iPhone! Me: ... iPhone: ApplePay is right here, you should totally set it up! Me: I will literally throw you into Jernegan Pond. Meanwhile, Google: Hello! Yeah, we're tracking your every move. Did you know you scratch your nose with your left hand more often on odd numbered days? Anyway, yeah, foobar2000 for Android is a thing and since you're signed into Google here, you can remotely install it on your only Android device (don't worry, we know all about that, too!) with one click. Android tablet: This Fiio widget works just fine. We'll make foobar use it by default. Foobar2000: Yeah, I see all these mp3s on the SD card. Did you know you put the same Alcest album in there twice? Me: [exasperated Malcolm Reynolds dot gif

1) Segovia 2) Hendrix The rest. I told myself I wasn't going to participate in the best guitarist thing ever again. Damn it.

Lauren Unknown Kenzo