Knuckledragger

"Sir, there appears to be a dining table in front of your stereo."

Happy birthday, FATHEAD! I got you a custom decorated cake.

Don't look now, but I think I found Brent.

You know the old saying "No highs, no lows, must be Bose there's a cat on the speaker."

I've owned a bunch of film bodies over the years, including two Canon SLRs. I had a Rebel G in the mid 00s and put a number of rolls of film through it. I got rid of it, but I no longer remember the circumstances. I have to this day a Rebel K2, which is very consumer grade, but it works. Paradoxically, I exposed fewer total frames with the K2, but I worked much harder with it. Last summer I blew the metaphorical and physical dust off the K2 and ran some slide and print film through it. I still haven't developed any of the above, but that's another matter. The first task the Rebel presented me with was cleaning the ...gunk that the soft touch plastic grips had become. I had to do the same thing with the Lecia P&S I stumbled upon as well as my IR-modified PowerShot G2. Soft grips are the devil. When I got rid of the Rebel G, I kept its kit lens, which is a boring 35-80mm zoom. I also still have the K2's kit lens, which is an absolutely abysmal 28-90mm. The 28-90 is so fantastically bad it's kind of amazing. It's not "silly lo-fi lens" bad like the Holga 60mm F/8: The 28-90 is both boring and bad: not very sharp at any aperture, wretched color transmission and very poor contrast. It also has impressive amounts of barrel distortion throughout its zoom range. I'm not one who complains about distortion under normal circumstances. I shot with the infamous EF-S 17-85mm for years, which is a goddamn fisheye at the wide end. Last week I had the bright idea to clean up both the 35-80 and 28-90 and strap them to my 30MP 5D4. I actually haven't shot with the former, but I gave the latter quite a workout and it returned were a frothy mix of bad and boring. Fool that I am, I spent considerable time editing some of the better shots. Morning Glory Farm. F/13 at the wide end. The unedited photo lacked color, most sharpness and contrast. The distortion is present here but largely irrelevant. My back yard. Zoomed almost all the way in (88mm) and wide open (F/5.6). Were I shooting seriously, I'd have bumped up the ISO considerably and stopped way down. I also used a LUT, which helped add some color. Hilariously artificial skies above Sweetened Water Farm. F/14 at the wide end. The most famous little shack on MV. 35mm and F/11. As was true for all of the above images, I spent ages editing this one in Luminar 4 (including applying a LUT to it) and then Photoshop. For this one in particular I went as far as comparing this shot to other photos I'd taken of the same building to correct the barrel distortion as much as I could. I will never shoot with the 28-90 again. I'm thinking about donating it to the local charity shop. I'm going to try out the 35-80 this weekend. It can't be any worse ...can it? I'm going back to my trusty 50mm F/1.8 Mark I once this little experiment finishes.

If you're insistent on shooting film and want EXIF, you could search for a Canon EOS-1V or Nikon F6. The 1V can store exposure info for "100 rolls of 36 exposure film" and the F6 can save information for <mumble> exposures to CF with the MV-1 card reader. All of these things are 20 or so years old now and don't grow on trees. In 2009 or so, I had a chance to get a clean EOS-1V, 85mm F/1.8 and 200mm F/2.8L (the "L" no one remembers) for like $1100 shipped. I didn't buy it and have been kicking myself ever since. Of course, given what I've done in the last 15 years, I'd probably have spent $30 on batteries for the 1V and put 2 rolls of film through it. Such is life.

Since some time 2008, when I shoot film I use the voice recorder app on my phone to record the time, date, exposure settings, lens, filters, zoom in mm (if applicable) on every shot I take. It's a PITA, but it saves my sanity. I learned a long time ago I am incapable of guessing what lens I used. Take this not very interesting shot taken with Kodak Gold 200 in 2008: When I got the scans back in '08, I didn't really like it so I ignored it for 15 years. Revisiting it in 2023, I guess it was taken with my 35mm F/2, which I used a lot with film bodies at the time. I checked my notes and .... "Hadley, 7/02/08 - 8:07PM - 135mm Orestor @ F/8." I can't reliably tell the difference between a 35mm and 135mm on a full frame, in a location I know and have visited for almost five decades. Write your shit down. Future you will be very thankful.

I've been attempting to take meaningful photos at 300mm. It's been a nontrivial task. First up is some carefully edited photos taken with my (never not crap) Canon 75-300mm. A heron stepping around the pond. 75-300 @ 300mm, F/10, 1/800, ISO1600. I took advantage of the 5D4's high ISO performance to use a small aperture (the 75-300 sucks ass at anything else) and maintain a decent shutter speed. First day with the 300mm F/4 Nikkor. The subject is more native MV wildlife. This time, the wheelbarrow belonging to my (sainted, octogenarian) mother. It was holding still and well lit. The 300mm Nikkor works on a Canon body with an adapter, but it's nontrivial to use. First off, it doesn't have a hard stop at infinity focus. Many (most) old manual focus lenses have one and I find it super useful at any focal length. At 300mm, lacking a hard stop is a serious handicap. I eventually learned to deal with it. Not terribly interesting shot of Sweetened Water Farm, from my driveway. The main point of this shot (besides capturing some golden hour sun on some trees) was to demonstrate just how far back infinity focus starts with a 300mm. Bonus: (Nearly) the same view last summer, taken with my second Orestegor 300mm (which is significantly bigger and heavier than the 300mm Nikkor.) Again, not the wacky depth of field the 300mm provides. Both of these shots were taken wide open, which is to say F/4. Late afternoon sun on Jernegan pond. The 300mm Nikkor does produce a tiny bit of CA wide open. You both have to work to make it in a shot and then look for it afterward. A small plane flew overhead and I managed to capture it. Not as easy as one might imagine. There's shooting the moon, then there's shooting the moon. F/4, 1/160 with my hand on the front of the lens (steadies it a bit), ISO3200. Moments later, F/4 (I *think*), 1/160, ISO6400. More use of the 5D4's ISO performance. When I took this shot, I was very proud that I captured two herons and a duck. Upon editing I realized it was actually three herons. TBH I haven't picked up the 300mm Nikkor in a few weeks. I've been too busy editing photos from 2013 and 2023. More on that later.

I downloaded this video off some site (I think a server from the college where it was filmed) in the 00s (when downloading an entire video was a novel idea.) I moved it from HDD to HDD, machine to machine for the rest of the decade. Sometime around 2010, I uploaded it to YouTube, but kept it unlisted. Today, I rummaged for it (YT's interface is legendarily bad) and made it public: I hope the copyright trolls leave me alone. It's a pretty fascinating watch if one cares about music production at all. RIP, Steve.

Shee-it. RIP Steve Albini. Dude was more or less never not a dickhead, but one of the most important figures in American punk rock and (I say this with all seriousness) one of the greatest record producers ever. He was also a brilliant graphic designer. Dude was punk rock to his core. EDIT: Got Ninja'd by TMoney while I was finding a properly high rez version of the above.

I really regretted not being able to do my radio show last night. I'd 100% have ended it with CSNY's "Ohio"

54 years ago today:

Yo dawg...

Oof. RIP MC Conrad who was the longtime musical partner with drum n bass DJ LTJ Bukem. There was a time in the mid 1990s where they were the best thing going on when things were going on everywhere.

That dog toy has seen better days.

Whoa mama. BMW 1602 converted to EV. I know these things pose all sorts of safety concerns (pedestrian killing front end, tiny pillar, etc.) but ...just don't care. Modern cars are so seriously fug I hate more or less all of them. The '02 series BMWs are among the best in 70s car design. Video on the above. Unfortunately, Blimey McSideburns is in dire need of a lavalier mic and lacks one.

A story in 3 parts:

The Chinaman made some crazy drills here, Dude. Also, "Chinaman" is not the preferred nomenclature...

This is the "speaker porn" version of "a criminal lawyer."

Guy on /r/audiophile inherited this setup from his grandfather. He asked "Is this stuff any good? Should I keep it?" I managed to not blurt out "No, it's very bad and in fact dangerous. I'll do you a favor make sure it gets disposed of properly."

"See honey? His wife didn't object to the Wilsons!"