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.
Sunday, 22 February 2026
Scarlet Elf Cup
Saturday, 21 February 2026
A Moment For Reconditioning
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.
Friday, 20 February 2026
A Promise Of The Sun
The interminable cloud broke up for a few minutes this afternoon in between showers.
Thursday, 19 February 2026
You Had One Job!
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.
Wednesday, 18 February 2026
2026-02-18
A backup photo today. I got home from work utterly exhausted, fell asleep on the sofa, and nothing useful was done.
Tuesday, 17 February 2026
Examine The Fracture Surface
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.







