Some of the bits I've spent a lot of time making this week / weekend.
On a bigger, more rigid machine, these would be pretty easy bits, but on my tiny little lathe, it's more of a challenge. I'd go into more detail, but I fear most of the audience would die of boredom, so I'll leave it here!
Still, by my measurements, they're all in tolerance, with the exception of one groove, which I'll probably remake, and the lathe hasn't gone up in smoke yet, so it's all good.
This one's my 52Frames submission for the "Sports Photography" challenge.
Sport is very much not my thing, and I have no idea where I'd go to shoot any without looking like a more massive weirdo than usual.
The sole concession to sport that I have in the house is this baseball that I was sent when I joined Smarter Every Day's Patreon, so that's my subject for today.
I picked up this chunk of lichen on a walk several weeks ago, and it's been hanging out in a (clean!) poo bag ever since.
I was absolutely knackered after work today, and didn't have the energy to go out, so when I'd recovered at least a bit, I thought it was high time I did something with it.
This is a 5x macro photo made up of 99 stacked shots.
I've added a behind-the-scenes shot to show the scale of the main photo after the jump.
This is my submission for this week's 52Frames "Out Of Place" challenge.
I quite enjoyed the thinking part of this challenge, coming up with various slightly surreal situations.
I had planned to borrow an old rotary dial telephone and take it somewhere odd, but the weather has turned to rain, so I ultimately dropped that plan in favour of this strange out-of-place place setting that I could shoot indoors.
This is the first time in years that I have actually used a flash attached to the top of the camera rather than off-camera on a light stand of some sort. Naturally, It was not actually pointed at the subject, but bounced off the white ceiling.
I had a few frames left, and wanted to develop this roll of film.
There were some interesting clouds, which I wanted to shoot with a red filter to make them pop more against the sky, but I spotted this reflection in one of my doors as I went upstairs to retrieve the aforementioned filter.
I ended up preferring this to the cloud shots.
Shot on very expired Ilford Delta 400
For no reason in particular, I went back to the 6D II for this one today.
For all of the technical and quality of life advantages of the mirrorless R5, there is still something nice about seeing a real optical image through the viewfinder.
It is weird not to be able to review images in the viewfinder though, I've got very used to that since I got the R5, particularly for a quick check, or when it's too bright to see the screen. I instinctively hit play with my eye to the viewfinder and wondered why I was still seeing a live image for a moment, until the 'duh' hit me!
The long dry spell broke with a rather nice thunderstorm followed by an evening of rain. I'm sure the plants and gardeners will be happy. I, however, am slightly damp.
This was my 500th post on Instagram. Not sure how I got here, but here, evidently, I am.
Owing to being a muppet who left the R5 at his parents' house, I had to fall back on the trusty old 6D II tonight. Still a lovely camera, but it doesn't half make a noise when you fire the shutter!
I've been threatening to do it, and I did it!
I bought the kit I needed to develop B&W film again, and shot a long-expired roll of @ilfordphoto HP5+.
This is the first film I've shot in well over 10 years. I suspect the HP5+ that I shot here, which expired in 2012, was probably one of the last rolls I bought, which puts the purchase date around 2010 at the latest. This would line up with the point that I was made redundant, and almost completely gave up shooting for fun.
Amazingly, my old EOS 1N still works perfectly after a bit of cleaning, and my ancient Konica Minolta film scanner still functions too, thanks to the excellent Vuescan software.
I took a rather indifferent video of loading the camera to mark the occasion.
The video and a couple more frames are after the jump.
A bit of a play on words, I suppose.
This caption was going to contain much detailed, frustrated yammering, but you don't want to read that, I'm sure.
Suffice to say that today has seen plans chopped and changed on top of frustratingly slow progress on everything.
Never did the phrase "more haste, less speed" seem more appropriate.
An old neighbour once said that his work felt like constantly fighting fires with a water pistol. I know how he felt.
This is the same plant I shot a few days ago, but properly out now. It smells remarkably strong!
A couple more after the jump.
This week's 52Frames challenge is "Something Old" with an extra challenge of focus stacking.
I thought I'd shoot some of my Grandpa's old tools (which I still use quite regularly!)
This is a focus stack of 30 images.
A day late posting this backup photo of a salt lamp. I find the textures in these glowing blocks of salt quite interesting.
Another go at the daffodils.
I'm not overly happy with this photo, but I'm too tired to think about how to make it better!
A backup image from a very long time ago, back in February. I did take a few photos today, but they were very boring technical things. You can see one after the jump, if you're inclined to seek out such tedium.
A hectic day rapid-fire switching between different projects today left me with no creative energy tonight, so this is a backup image from the weekend.
I liked the look of the distinct layers in this cliff face.
Bailey's first trip to the beach. Once he got used to the feeling of the sand, he loved it!
I wondered if the sound of the waves would scare him, but he didn't seem bothered by that at all.
One more after the jump.
A very busy day today, including working a decent chunk of the evening machining some parts for the project I'm working on at work.
I can't really share those parts, but these assorted screws go some way to telling the story of the day...
I spotted a little wisp of what might have been noctilucent cloud just after sunset, and kept an eye on it for a while.
It seemed to be intensifying, so I thought I'd head out and try to capture it.
It turned out to be rather a nice display.
Seeing and smelling this plant a couple of times recently brought back childhood memories. Such a nice smell!
A bit of a snatched shot today - I saw these catching the sun in the garden while my pot was coming up to a boil, so nipped out to grab a few quick pics. I'm glad I did, because the sun had moved off them by the time I had finished eating.
These probably deserve more thorough treatment with a focus stack, but they were moving too much in the breeze to attempt that today.
