Monday 31 January 2011

31-01-11: What Happened Next: Resistance Is Futile


Well, it is if you're a 10 Ohm 0.25W resistor and you're being cooked with a lab supply!
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Sunday 30 January 2011

Saturday 29 January 2011

29-01-11: Breakout


It's extremely maddening that I've got a perfectly good Avid Mojo SDI sat on my desk, and no money to buy a copy of Media Composer to use it with...
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Friday 28 January 2011

28-01-11: Road to Somewhere


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Thursday 27 January 2011

27-01-11: Chinese Whispers


Pass the flaming message on!
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Wednesday 26 January 2011

26-01-11: Impaled Drop



...Which brings me back up to date after several days of great inefficiency on the posting front!
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Tuesday 25 January 2011

25-01-11: Ignition


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Monday 24 January 2011

24-01-11: Droplet 2


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Sunday 23 January 2011

23-01-11: Droplet 1


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Saturday 22 January 2011

22-01-11: Screw (the) forest


No, I'm not anti-tree, it just seemed an appropriate title!
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Friday 21 January 2011

21-01-11: Slowly sucked into the vortex


I hope my computer lasts out until I have a bit more money... It's giving rather ominous signs of an impending major hardware meltdown...
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Thursday 20 January 2011

20-01-11: Inspiration for a carpet?



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Wednesday 19 January 2011

19-01-11: X Marks The Spot



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Tuesday 18 January 2011

18-01-11: Sunrise Junction



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Monday 17 January 2011

17-01-11: Dimly Observed


Shot through a fine net curtain.

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Oops...

Apologies if you're reading via RSS, I didn't mean to flood your system with blank posts!
The button on my mouse seems to have gone wonky; I think the contacts are bouncing rather badly, so it sometimes sends multiple clicks when I try to single click something.
I feel a fit of soldering iron rage coming on, assuming I can find a replacement switch.

If you've no idea what I'm rambling on about, you clearly weren't affected by my hyperactive mouse issue ;)

Sunday 16 January 2011

16-01-11: Droplets


Part of a timelapse sequence, the only thing I shot today.

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Saturday 15 January 2011

15-01-11: Mega Macro 3 - Broken tooth


Junior Hacksaw blade.
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Friday 14 January 2011

14-01-11: Evergreen, Intermittent Blue



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Thursday 13 January 2011

13-01-11: Going Home



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Wednesday 12 January 2011

12-01-11: Mega Macro 2


Tip of a Sharpie fineliner pen. Metal tube is 1.2mm diameter, red tip is 0.8mm diameter.

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Tuesday 11 January 2011

11-01-11: Mega Macro 1



This picture is uncropped, and the LED shown is 5mm (about 3/16") across!

I've finally got my act together and assembled what I'm calling my "mega macro rig"

It's made from a set of Kopil bellows that were designed to fit some kind of screw mount camera, a Canon EOS T mount, a Canon FD 10mm extension ring, and an FD 50mm f/3.5 macro lens.
The bellows and lens were given to me with the closure of some old darkrooms where I used to work, and I already had the T mount. The FD extension ring was the only bit I bought (I got a set of 3 off ebay to scavenge the bayonet from at least one)

The T mount doesn't properly fit the bellows, but the threads engage for a couple of turns and the whole thing seems pretty secure. I glued the FD mount to the front standard of the bellows so I can use any FD lens I want.
If I've done the maths right (by no means guaranteed ;)), I can achieve a maximum magnification of 3.6:1 with the 50mm lens.
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Monday 10 January 2011

10-01-11: Reflected Trees



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Sunday 9 January 2011

09-01-11: Loughborough Carillon




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Saturday 8 January 2011

08-01-11: Rooted


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Friday 7 January 2011

07-01-11: Waiting


No idea what I'm waiting for, but I'm waiting all the same ;)
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Thursday 6 January 2011

06-01-11: To Trains



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Wednesday 5 January 2011

05-01-11: Cold, wet, and generally unpleasant


Station Street Tram Terminus. Very cold, and spitting rain.

I had to go in to the job centre in town today, to "sign on" - for non UK readers, this is what you have to do every two weeks when you're unfortunate enough to be claiming unemployment benefit - something which I sincerely hope I'll not need to do for much longer...

[rant (select if you really want to read it)]
I really despise going to sign on; you get treated like an errant child, and there's always a fair collection of right charmers also signing on - a few weeks ago it was a bloke playing "music" from his phone's loudspeaker (ignoring the "No mobile phones" signs, naturally)
I seem to recall hearing something about "F*****g all mah b*tches, yeah" I'm no prude, but that's beyond crass. Not to mention I don't particularly like rap at the best of times...

Today is was a couple with a crying baby; the mum, in the direction of the pushchair: "We wouldn't be here if yer dad hadn't knocked me up". Classy. Very Classy.
[/rant]

Ah well, onward and upward ;)

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Tuesday 4 January 2011

04-01-11: Moo


Belvoir castle in the background.
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Monday 3 January 2011

03-01-11: Source of power


Power lines leading to Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station

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Sunday 2 January 2011

02-01-11: 2011 Begins


You'll probably need to view this one full size to see the detail!

The spheres are a set of BuckyBalls, a massively addictive desk toy. On the face of it, 216 small spherical magnets might not sound much like fun, but believe me, if you have a set of these on your desk, you'll get very little work done.

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Saturday 1 January 2011

01-01-11: 2010 Disappears




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2010 - Well, that worked...

...Or not...

2010 wasn't a particularly brilliant year for me, creatively or generally.
It started off with a lot of changes and hassle at work, being moved from my office, studio and control room, into a basement in the IT building.
At the time I half-jokingly said to my colleagues "give it 6 months, and we'll be redundant"; life may imitate art, evidently it listens to snarky comments too.
We got our marching orders in late July, and I left in early September.

What with the hassle hanging over me in the early part of the year, and the lack of work since September, I've not been in much of a mood to shoot a lot, so the camera got a bit of a light year. Hopefully 2011 will be better.
I'm going to try and do the 365 again this year, to get me out of the rut.

Being off hasn't been all bad though; as well as trying my hand at winemaking and a few other bits and pieces, it has given me a chance to build a website, something I've been wanting to do for some time. You can see it here if you're interested: http://www.ben-s.co.uk



To 2011!