Fingery picturebox (and turning result)

2 crossposts in one day, tsk.

As some will know, I have a new fingery picturebox (aka digital camera) and I did hint that sometime I most post something taken with same.

Also, today, a new camera bag arrived, which is big enough to hold not only the camera, leads, spare batteries and cards but also the filter adapter and a few filters which I recently acquired.

The filters are normal 58mm and come in those clear plastic cases where the lid twists to grip the base with seveeral little blobs on the inside. However, in this case, the lids are too tall (meaning the filter rattles inside) and also didn't fasten very well as the little blobs didn't extend to the end of the lid.

The solution to this was to change the jaws in the lathe chuck to the other set, grip the lid in the chuck and turn about 80 thou' (2mm) from the end, making it shorter and incidentally making the blobs that grip the base work better as well.

This can be seen in the picture linked to here

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has been left untouched bar for cropping, so it also serves as an indication of the output of the FPB.

The modified lid is the one on the right.

I was quite pleased that I managed to turn this stuff, it's the kind of hard clear plastic that's prone to break.

The picture is at focal length (equivalent) 61mm, 1/60s, f3.5, using flash, SHQ mode storage (best compressed mode). The camera will do raw as well.

Reply to
Austin Shackles
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John S must be busy, no witty remarks yet. Come on lad we are waiting. T.W.

Reply to
the wizard

In article , Austin Shackles writes

Interesting story for those of us who (like me) are into photography and engineering. Have had problems with those filter cases before, never thought of turning them down (hangs head with embarrassment).

Would have been even more interesting if you'd told us what model of FBP you used.

David

Reply to
David Littlewood

Umm, all the filters I have bought have a soft (usually a rubbery sort of plastic) insert to prevent such rattling about.

mh

Reply to
max

I too had that problem with the old SLR film cameras. The solution was a pad of lens tissue.

Late last month, I also bought a DSLR, and need a new set of filters. With the wet climate here on the West coast of British Columbia, a case or rain cover is the first priority!

Steve R.

Reply to
Steve R.

John S must be busy, no witty remarks yet. Come on lad we are waiting. T.W.

******************************************************

He is probably helping Ketan to load up the artic for Harrogate.

For some reason Outlook Express will not auto indent this message. Any other messages I select auto indents OK.

Reply to
Archie

But this one indents OK. Strange.

Reply to
Archie

On Wed, 6 May 2009 11:19:40 -0700, Steve R. wrote in :

ITYM "Wet Coast"! Something like 4 out of the first 6 months I lived in Vancover (from 11/83) were classified as "the wettest month ever".

I remember asking my companion on a ski-lift at Whistler once where he came from. "Ever-wet, Washington," was his reply.

Amazing that Expo '86 was so dry! (I got rained on the last day, riding a motorcycle back from a conference at Stanford U.)

Reply to
Dr Ivan D. Reid

LOL! A few years ago a small storm ( in area) hit the mountain I live on. It dumped a foot of rain in an hour! The road was running 4 inches deep, and a

2 foot wide creek became a 10 foot deep raging torrent!

Steve R.

Reply to
Steve R.

On or around Wed, 6 May 2009 17:04:46 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com enlightened us thusly:

so do these, but the box was too tall and so they still rattled. I could of course have put added padding into them, but that wouldn't have been a challenge.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

On or around Wed, 6 May 2009 16:01:57 +0100, David Littlewood enlightened us thusly:

Olympus SP-550 UZ.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

In article , Austin Shackles writes

Thanks.

D
Reply to
David Littlewood

Can it take six month exposures?

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or even 30 minute ones for that matter?

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Reply to
Andy Burns

Talking of such fingery picturebox (aka digital camera) thingies, can you - or anyone - recommend a cheap-ish camera which will take pictures of real-life things sized between a sheet of A4 paper and a postage stamp?

Don't need loadsa pixels, I mainly want to put piccys of some stuff I've done on the internet, but my present camera tends to take blurred piccys of things in that size range, no matter what I try.

I'm not a photographer-type, and I'm not interested in learning about f-stops, exposures, apertures, or any of that rubbish.

Ta,

-- Peter Fairbrother

Reply to
Peter Fairbrother

Talking of such fingery picturebox (aka digital camera) thingies, can you - or anyone - recommend a cheap-ish camera which will take pictures of real-life things sized between a sheet of A4 paper and a postage stamp?

Don't need loadsa pixels, I mainly want to put piccys of some stuff I've done on the internet, but my present camera tends to take blurred piccys of things in that size range, no matter what I try.

I'm not a photographer-type, and I'm not interested in learning about f-stops, exposures, apertures, or any of that rubbish.

Ta,

-- Peter Fairbrother

Reply to
Peter Fairbrother

You are probably trying to get too close to the subject, trying to make it fill the frame. Try taking pictures from a bit further away. You can crop the image to the right size in software.

Reply to
Bernard Peek

Depends on los of things, like your definition of cheapish. I'm luck enough to have both a compact (fits in the pocket) and a DSLR (far more controllable). If I need close shots I can put a close up adapter (+3 dioptre lens) on the DSLR to focus closer and get a larger image. You could try holding one in front of a compact and see how it goes or make an adapter. Unfortunately most compacts seem to be auto focus only and might vary shot to shot, if you took the pictures on something like graph paper you could see how much depth of field you can get (if you put the camera on a tripod and force it somhow to do a longer exposure the lens aperture will be smaller with a greater dof). A bit of optics knowledge helps to find the new focus distance as in 1/f=1/u+1/v.

See

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They are silly prices, I reckon you could get one used from a camera shop for around £5 or equivalent

Hope that helps

Reply to
coj

Unfortunately, close-up lenses have less effect on a short focal length lens (as you will find in compact cameras) than on longer focal lenght lenses (100mm+ on a DSLR). So you would need significantly more than a +3 diopter lens (maybe upwards of ten times that) to make a worthwhile difference to close-up work on the average P&S camera.

There are plenty of digital cameras around that have in-built "macro" capability, but they tend not to be at the cheap end of the range, especially if you want manual control as well. Having said that, the Nikon Coolpix L19 and L20 focus down to 5cm (what this means in terms of the size of object that will fill the frame is something you'll have to figure out for yourself!) and cost around £85-100 street price. You don't get any manual control over focus or exposure, but on the other hand, it may well do the job. Best way is to go into Jessops and experiment with one and see what it can actually do - if they won't let you, there are other camera shops that will. It will also give you a chance to compare/contrast with other models and makes - the Jessops staff in my local branch are surprisingly clued up on their product line.

If you want something with more sophisticated exposure modes, including manual exposure control, then look at the Nikon Coolpix "P" series cameras - the P50 is the start of that range, street prices start at around £125.

As always, it is worth trying Ebay for older models. I have an old Nikon Coolpix 4500 that has manual focus and exposure control and a macro mode that focuses down to about 2cm; it is still a very useful camera & is what I use most of the time to take pics for magazine articles - I don't care if it gets greasy or whatever. There are a couple on the 'bay right now - items 200337679237 and 140318151409. Looks like they will go for ~50-60.

Regards, Tony

Reply to
Tony Jeffree

Almost any low end snapshot camera will do that. Most have a macro setting. My low end one is an Olympus 210. It has a macro mode that is good enough to photograph bugs on the windscreen of my van. It also has a large LCD screen to make life easier. My DSLR (also an Olympus) is not always convenient to carry. The little one has 7.1 megapixels, and lives in my pants pocket.

Steve R.

Reply to
Steve R.

On or around Sat, 9 May 2009 08:05:25 +0100, Bernard Peek enlightened us thusly:

good advice. If you go closer you distort shapes even if you get sharp focus.

For close-up of postage-stamp-size, you'll want a decent macro mode - in SLR days we used to use extension tubes and/or close-up lenses on the front of the lens.

Most half-decent FBPs will have macro, many these days have supermacro too.

hmmm. that reminds me, took some pics of ants to test that the other day, not uploaded 'em from the camera yet.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

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