Dinky Daff

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One Of Many 7s

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A backup photo today, shot yesterday
The Caterham 7s were out in force, going around corners seemingly almost as fast as they were on the straights.

Chase Me!

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I went on a track day at Cadwell Park with a friend and friend-of-said-friend.
I got overtaken a lot, scared myself a bit, learnt a lot, then we finished the day with the track pretty much to ourselves.

I didn't get a photo of the car I spent the most time in, a Mk1 MX5 (yay for pop-up headlights), but I did get in a few laps in this silver Cayman too.

CAT5

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The innards of a bit of network cable.

De-Scoot

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A backup photo today, shot a couple of nights ago.

Apply Aerosol Here

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A backup photo today, shot last night.

Stars On Sticks

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I went out for a late walk this evening.

I Can Smell This Photo

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I was making a coffee this afternoon, and thought it was about time for another coffee-adjacent photo.

This one's not a stack (for a change), but it was approaching the limit of what was reasonable to shoot in one frame at this magnification.

Crocus Glow

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I spent a large chunk of the day on the road today, so didn't end up having time or the correct brain mode to shoot anything.

Not sure why I've not shared this one here before, I rather like it.

Happy Birthday Bailey!

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What it says on the tin really! This one's just a phone photo, largely because I didn't take a proper camera with me for some reason.

More Elf Cups

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Today was a rather busy day, and I ended up spending the quite a chunk of the evening helping my colleague de-wonkify his new car's headlight and bumper.

This one's a backup from my trip to the woods a few weeks ago.
It's a stack of 11 frames.

Drip, Rebelling, Momentarily

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I dug out the Miops Splash for the first time in ages tonight, and had a bit of fun with it.
We bought some lab jacks for the x-ray work we did recently. When I found them in the car boot the other night, it occurred to me that they might be a useful thing for macro work, so I've been playing with one of them with most of my setup on it. It's rather useful to be able to move the subject rather than, or at least in addition to manipulating the camera.
I'm quite tempted to buy myself at least one as a result.

Success!

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We finally got through the EMC tests we have been working on at work today, with the addition of a little widget we designed.
That's another bit of the project in the bag.
This one's a focus stack of 68 images.

Unrelated, but this is my 1250th post here.

Catkins or Microphones?

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A rather long day today, but I did manage to shoot this after I recovered a bit.

It's a focus stack of 15 shots, manually incremented

Hurried Camellia

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Lucy's camellia is coming out nicely this year.
I was a bit worried about it last year; it looked pretty sickly and failed to flower.
On the advice of greener-fingered humans, I dug it out of its pot, and found it had become badly pot-bound. A bigger pot and some more compost last year seems to have done the trick for this year.

This was a fairly rushed shot as I was on my way out Saturday afternoon, but I don't think it's too bad.

The Evening's Entertainment

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I stuck my sound man hat on again this evening for an "In Disguise" fundraising gig.

It all seemed to go rather well, with the dance floor filling up from about the third number, and some nice feedback from the organisers afterwards.

I have finally got round to tidying up my network, power, and monitoring accoutrements, with everything now mounted to a board. Setup was much easier and neater than it has been.

Like yesterday, this one's not much more than a snapshot, but I've shot so little this week, and it's a memory of a thing accomplished, so it means something to me, which is really why I'm doing this.

Flyball

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I went to Crufts with a friend, and we managed to get seats in the main arena for the Flyball among a few other events.

Lucy would have loved this, she really enjoyed watching Crufts, and particularly the Flyball on TV. We never got the chance to go together, with the spectre of Covid rearing its ugly head not long after she discovered how much she actually liked dogs.

Flyball is incredibly fast, the dogs make it there and back in around 4 seconds, sometimes less.

This one's no more than a snapshot really, but I've shot so little this week, and it's a memory of a good day, so it means something to me at least.

Dead Lifesaver

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Another backup photo, shot last week.
This one's another bit of playing with the new-to-me fisheye.
I thought the dead face graffiti was quite funny in the context of lifesaving equipment.

I could have done with a tripod here, I was pushing the limits of handholding (at least for me), at 1/10 sec, and I had the ISO cranked up to 25,600.
Even then, the result was quite dark, and I ended up whacking the exposure up by more than a stop in Lightroom.

Another X-Ray

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And a very late, backup image, at that.

One of my favourite lenses, the EF70-200mm f/2.8 L IS.
It cost me more than my first car did, but it's still going strong, despite having suffered a few insults over the years.
It once went back to Canon to be put back together after someone (not me!) kicked it off a bit of staging, and at some point it picked up a dent in the barrel.
While it's getting a bit old, and has been superseded at least twice in the EOS range, I still love this lens.

A Shorter Wavelength

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I was X-ray imaging some stuff for work today.
Once we had finished the real work, there was a bit of time left over in the rental period, so I had a bit of fun and stuck my R5 and 85mm f/1.2L II in there.
I think it's come our rather well.

An interesting day, all told.

I'm not exactly sure what detector panel we were using today, but we were using a Hamamatsu 180kV microfocus generator.

Way...

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Another backup photo today.
I like this one, the layers in the scene really stack up with the reflections in a rather pleasing way.

I am very pleased with this lens; I wish I'd bought one before. It's much nicer than my previous 50mm f/1.4, but has kept the things I liked about that lens. EOS R5, EF50mm f/1.2L

Crane Index

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A backup photo today.

Dans Le Noir? / T15

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We marked Eve's birthday with a trip to @danslenoirlondon today.
A remarkable experience, and a real hands-on insight into the world without vision that she had lived through latterly.

I don't think I've ever been anywhere so utterly, impenetrably dark. The closest experience I can think of was a tour I once did at the Ilford Photo factory. The very darkest area was, as you might expect, the film production line, and even that had occasional tiny betalights to navigate by.

We went for a drink and a wander round afterwards; the late afternoon light was great, and perhaps perceptually intensified by the couple of hours we had spent in the dark.

Today's actual photo after the jump.

Beachballs?

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I'm in a strange, unsettled frame of mind today.

Moon In A Box

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A backup photo, shot last night.

Who Cares? Chuck It On The Floor

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I thought this was a reasonable, not-too-cliched debut for my new fisheye lens.

It's taking a bit more getting used to than I expected, you need to get very close, and it's weird to have it zoom between full frame and circular images.
I'll probably ruminate on here about how it compares to some of my other wide lenses once I've played with it a bit more.

2026-02-24: Cider / Goods In.

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I Think You Dropped Your Glove

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I took a walk this evening and this dropped-and-retrieved glove caught my eye.

Scarlet Elf Cup

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We had a lovely day today, sunny and warm for the time of year.
I went for a walk in the woods with my parents, and we spotted lots of these Scarlet Elf Cup fungi.
This one's a stack of 10 photos. I manually incremented the focus between shots.

A Moment For Reconditioning

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I bought myself another 2nd-hand lens yesterday, the EF8-15mm f/4 L fisheye. I've been considering one for a long time, but they don't come up locally all that often.
While it works well, it is not in perfect condition; it looks like the protruding front element has made contact with one or two things over the years, as it has a few very fine scratches, and the weather seal was pretty well mangled, as is relatively common with used L series lenses.
The seals aren't protected when the lens is capped and stuffed in your bag, and they're made of a fairly soft silicone, so they're easily snagged and torn if you aren't careful.
The new RF series caps are a bit bigger and protect the seal, so I have contemplated either getting a few of those, although they're a rather tight fit on the EF lenses, or perhaps 3D printing an extra ring to attach to the EF caps to cover up the seal.
Fortunately, the weather seal is a fairly straightforward repair now I've found a ready source of affordable replacement seals. I've made this repair on several of my lenses now with good results.

Hopefully I'll have some wacky fisheye photos from this lens to share soon.

A Promise Of The Sun

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The interminable cloud broke up for a few minutes this afternoon in between showers.

You Had One Job!

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I took myself out for a walk this evening to decompress a bit.
I'd say it worked, although I did end up with sore feet!
I thought this ex-light was interesting.

2026-02-18

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A backup photo today. I got home from work utterly exhausted, fell asleep on the sofa, and nothing useful was done.

Examine The Fracture Surface

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I spent a bit of time today looking at the surfaces of a metal component that had fatigue fractured, and ended up taking some photos for the report. If I'd remembered to take the correct lens with me, I might even have posted one here, but alas I did not.
Therefore, you'll have to make do with this snackro of the fracture surface of a Matchmaker chocolate instead.

It's much tastier, and a lot less chewy than a lump of steel, I'll give it that much.

This one's a 3x magnification photo (plus a minor crop), and is a stack made up of 37 frames.

All Upside-Down And Back To Front

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Sunday Night Mood

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Defocus, attempt to recharge in time.

I've not done very much this weekend, but hopefully I've marshalled enough brain cells to be a vaguely productive member of society next week...
I did buy a nail gun in preparation for fixing the destruction that ensued as part of my re-wiring escapade last week. It turns out that a nail gun is a rather entertaining piece of equipment, and I'm wishing I bought one earlier.
I have thoroughly tested it on several chunks of scrap wood. Let's just say it's fortunate that the nails come in boxes of 2000, and not 50 😁

I also discovered that Bailey is a talented actor, and will do a very convincing impression of a dog with a dislocated shoulder if he disapproves of being cleaned of spilled ketchup. This Oscar-worthy performance will continue until cats are mentioned, upon which he will bolt for the garden, and my heart rate will slowly return to normal.

A Forest Of Snowdrops

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Back up to date...
I'm knackered after this working week. Not quite at the point of burnt out, but certainly feeling a little singed. Not exactly sure why, but it is what it is.

Remember when the sky was this colour?

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We have been "enjoying" pretty miserable weather for far too long now!
You guessed it, another backup shot.

Night Swans

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I dragged myself out for a walk tonight before heading back into work to reset an endurance test we have running.
Not a backup, for a change.

Rock / Hard Place

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Another late backup shot.
I'm running out of backups...

Mind The Closing Doors

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It's a late backup today, shot on my London trip a couple of weeks ago.

Nestled Drop

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I was absolutely knackered after work today. I flaked out on the sofa and woke myself up a couple of times with a particularly horrendous snore.
Predictably, now it's approaching midnight, I've perked up nicely and don't want to go to bed (as usual).

I've got a few daffodils on the go at the moment, so I thought I'd give them a spot of macro treatment. This one's a 4x magnification shot, un-stacked this time.

I 3D printed a grid for my Godox MF12 flashes the other night, and gave it a go here. It seems to work OK.
It's quite interesting working at this scale, even a small flash like the MF12 has the look a much larger light would have at a more normal scale, but you still need quite a lot of power.

Weapons-Grade Incompetence

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I've been intending to sort out a dodgy bit of diagonally-routed wiring in the house for at least a couple of years, but never managed to find a suitable combination of time and motivation until today.
As I chiselled out the badly routed wire, I found the workmanship was so much worse than I had expected - these two cables had been roughly joined by twisting them together, with a token few wraps of tape over the top, then the whole mess was cemented into the wall.
I'm very lucky the house didn't end up burning down from this sort of bodge.

I thought I'd channel the fire risk with the lighting on this shot before knuckling down and fixing the disaster.

Through The Dark

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This light's predecessor was a constant fixture from my childhood bedroom window, and I always rather liked it.
It was recently upgraded to this LED fixture - while it's quite a bit bigger than the old one, I'm quite pleased they've kept the classic style rather than switch it to a brutalist modern looking thing.
Energy efficiency and progress aside, I do kind of miss the comforting orange sodium glow

This Seat Is Mine

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Not the best of photos I suppose; I could have done with getting slightly higher (and probably waiting until Bailey's been trimmed), but I think it's quite cute nonetheless.
In any event, chasing a ball and licking me thoroughly was more on his mind than posing for photos, so I didn't get another chance.

Flying Head

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A bit of a busy evening tonight helping a friend with some CAD and 3D printing - this one's a 23:53 last ditch effort to capture something half-presentable.
Turns out it's quite tricky to follow the motion of a 3D printer while keeping in focus (ish)!

A few minor points notwithstanding, I'm very pleased with this printer.

Measured Response

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Seems an appropriate coda to the day, which was largely spent measuring things, thinking about measuring things, and talking about measuring things.
Not necessarily in that order.
And albeit to rather higher precision than the trusty steel rule can deliver.

It's very rare I use this lens without focus stacking, but today is one of those occasions.

Shrivel

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This one's a manually incremented focus stack of 13 shots.
This lens is pretty old, and didn't originally work on digital bodies, but a rather clever person from the Czech Republic came up with a neat little implant chip to upgrade these old Sigma lenses and keep them functional.
Rather pleasing, because it's a good lens.

Mild Murk

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Towering Edifice

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A backup photo again today, shot yesterday.