Scattered Thoughts . . .

While I am still recovering from COVID and a secondary infection, I pulled out one of my film cameras.  This is my Mint TL70 TLR Instax camera. I have sort of lost all track of time but I think I've been in quarantine for three weeks now.  I should be at the end of my quarantine period though as long as I test negative for COVID this evening.  I already went through the Paxlovid treatment and I am just finishing up my antibiotic for my secondary infection.   I'm feeling a bit better than I have been feeling, finally, but I am still quite fatigued.  Actually, I'm quite exhausted by mid-morning.  I'm still seeing signs in my nasal mucus showing that my body is in overdrive fighting this infection but the mucus volume is significantly smaller now which is good.  I've been fever-free for a few days now which is good because I had a fever coming and going for a long, long time.  My joints are pretty painful.  My spinal injuries are quite lousy as well but that might be m

I am still working on learning all I can about my new-to-me classic digital camera, the Fujifilm X30.  Each day I'm learning a bit more...  mostly good but I'm also finding its limitations.  No matter the tool, you must always know that tool's limitations and cameras are no exception.  Finding this camera's limitations is a good thing.  I want to know its limitations. I've saved seven custom profiles that I might prefer in various situations and environments.  I still need to get out to test these custom profiles but I now have a starting point for each.  One of the things that makes Fujifilm cameras so desirable to many photographers is the amount of customization you can do to each shot.  There is an uncharacteristically wide choice in choosing the perfect dynamic range, color, sharpness, shadows, highlights, noise reduction and white balance.  This camera provides more control for shifting the white balance than any other camera I have ever used whch is incredib

I 'm still familiarizing myself with my new-to-me Fuji X30 compact camera and thought I should write a bit more about this really amazing little camera and especially Fuji's Camera Remote app. Over the years, I've recommended this camera to quite a few people who were mostly beginners with very little photography experience.  This can be a great camera for those who know little about photography yet it produces some stunning images.  Unfortunately, I don't think anyone ever went ahead and purchased this camera after asking for my advice (I could write a book about all the times I was asked for advice and then they did not heed that advice instead often going for something I would never purchase for myself nor recommend under any circumstances) but, I can now say with complete honesty, that this recommendation of mine was a solid one.   Even today, nine years after this camera was first released, I would still recommend this camera to someone who wants a small, easy to u

I finally purchased a much needed dedicated solar astronomy camera and it arrived last night!   I've been using a sort of generic beginner astronomy camera (well...  maybe one step above entry level) meant primarily for guide scopes and planetary imaging.  There are far worse cameras than the one I've been using until now but this camera is not really an ideal choice for solar imaging.  It has been slow, difficult to use, noisy, and the image quality has been seriously lacking.  Producing good results out of this old astronomy camera has been difficult, frustrating and requiring a lot of extra post-processing.  I've had to work very hard at finessing fine detail out of the images and I've only managed to succeed at doing that because of my decades of photography experience.  I admit that I've managed to produce some nice imagery with the old camera but it has been difficult to accomplish requiring a lot of extra work and time.  Plus, much of the data from the old c

When Lukey and I were using the microscope a week or so ago, I noticed a few nagging problems that needed to be resolved before I attempted another microscopy session and especially a session that included photography and/or videography.  I spent the past week or so trying to resolve these problems and thought it would be best to document it all here. My first problem was that what I was seeing on my camera (and on the 32" monitor connected to my camera) was not nearly as crisp as what I was seeing visually in the binocular eyepieces.  This was really frustrating.  I had been using my Sony a6000 camera in a prime focus configuration.  Prime focus imaging involves no additional lenses including eyepieces.  This type of imaging works very well in astronomy but I was not liking what I was getting in microscopy.  The images and video were very soft, sort of mushy, un-crisp.  They looked really terrible on the 32 inch monitor. The next problem was figuring out what I actually needed to

As I've mentioned in previous blog entries, I've been trying to recover from two months of illness progressing from a cold, to flu, and with a stomach virus bug developing sometime in the middle of all of this nonsense.  I've also had some issues with recurring headaches and focus issues which, I assume, are due to my mild TBI from this past summer.  The headaches I've had recently were the same as the headaches I experienced from the TBI so...  it is a fairly safe assumption that these headaches were due to lingering TBI problems.  I have had, however, a couple of hours here and there of decent enough health to start working on some small, light projects. One project I keep putting aside and then going back to is restoring a folding medium format film camera I recently picked up.  I did a lot of clean up already and this antique camera looks great but it still needs some work before I can load it with some medium format film and give it a whirl.  Shortly after pur

Between struggling with poor health and trying to keep up with family activities and events, I've ended up in a not-so-surprising funk.  I get bored during extended bouts of poor health and finding interesting things to keep me busy while also keeping my mind occupied and feeling productive becomes a bit of a challenge.  I always find something to accomplish but sometimes the usual things I turn to become rather boring to me.  Lately, I've turned my focus to photography and, unfortunately, I've found that I'm in a bit of a funk when it comes to my photography.   I'm bored.   The things I shoot, I've shot a million times already (perhaps even literally) so it is something I feel I can do in my sleep now.  It is hard finding inspiration in the same old situations over and over again.  It is difficult finding something new, exciting and interesting in all the usual shooting subjects when you find yourself in a rut. I'd really love to spend more time build