Scattered Thoughts . . .

I've never been one to be a follower.  I definitely will not follow the masses in purchasing popular products by inexplicably popular manufacturers.  I am no lemming, I am no blind follower.  As such, for this reason as well as others, I'll never promote anything made by Canon, Nikon, (cr)Apple, Tesla/Musk (jeez...  I don't even like writing these two names), or similar manufacturers just to name a few that come to mind first.   (I have to point out that my negative feelings and opinions of Musk go far deeper than simply not following the masses after decades of giving lectures on the evils of this lying, dishonest, rapist of our Earth...  and it is a topic I have beaten to death in professional lectures touching upon, unfortunately, only deaf ears.  In time, unfortunately when it is too late, people will understand what I had been warning about decades earlier.)  I don't just blindly dislike these manufacturers.  I do research these manufacturers and try some products

Although I've been feeling quite lousy since being home from Manhattan...  so for the past month...  due to having COVID and some secondary infections and now awaiting results of some more serious tests, I've been a little bit bored at times too.  Most of the time, I've been feeling too lousy too be bored but, sometimes, I feel just well enough to want to accomplish something. I don't have much energy and my health problems seem to continually get worse in waves, but I still hope to accomplish something small each day with a very short burst of energy.  "Burst of energy"...  that is a bad joke so let me rephrase that.  I push myself for a few minutes at a time when I'm feeling a little better than I have previously and then need to rest.  Sometimes I sit at the piano briefly, sometimes I read, sometimes I watch a movie (or listen to a movie with my eyes closed), sometimes I pick up a camera and shoot some still objects in the living room. I had a few very

In order to keep my astronomy gear at the highest quality possible, I need all sorts of specialized tools.  The more specialized my gear gets, the more specialized my tools need to be.  That being said, one of the most common tasks an astronomer needs at a high level of proficiency is the task of collimating optics. Lenses comprising a lens group need to be square to each other...  lens groups need to be square to the focuser...  and mirrors, if your telescope has any, need to be perfectly aligned so the light focuses at one sharp point after reflecting off of two mirrors.  The solar spectroheliograph I am building also needs each of its four optical elements to be aligned perfectly with respect to each other.  Astronomy isn't just about looking at the sky.  Your gear needs to be properly maintained otherwise your observing sessions will be less-than-stellar (pun intended).  Of course, I'm also not your typical backyard astronomer who is just looking for some "gee whiz&quo

I had written previously about finally finding a configuration of gear that makes full disk solar observing far more enjoyable than without this new configuration of solar gear.  The purpose of this blog entry is more about documenting this new and unusual configuration so I can duplicate it again each time I want to observe the full disk of the sun with my Quark solar filter.  Of course, I have this configuration documented in my notes too but I figured it would be good to document it here as well.   My larger telescopes provide more closeup views but I like to see the whole disk as well.  In order to improve my full disk view, I had to play around with a few ideas on how I could possibly accomplish this.  I kept going back to my assortment of astronomy components to assemble different configurations.  Then I had to play around with spacing.  It was a fairly long process of trial and error based upon the knowledge I had gained through experience but I eventually hit upon the right co

I'm always on the lookout for good quality lenses at low prices. I can and do find all sorts of manual focus lenses that meet this criteria but I rarely come across an autofocus lens that is both a "good quality" and available at a low price. Fortunately, Rokinon has started producing autofocus lenses for Sony E-mount cameras and these lenses seem to be of pretty good quality. I already own a Rokinon manual focus lens that I find is great for portraits... the 85mm f1.4. As you can see in the portrait of Sheila at right, it really renders beautiful portraits. It is sharp, has nice contrast and the bokeh is smooth. For portrait work, a manual focus lens is no problem since my subject is always static and I really like this Rokinon 85mm lens for this purpose. However, for family events and parties, an autofocus lens helps out considerably because my subjects are always in motion and rarely want to stand still while I take a few short seconds to focus manually. Addition

As I've written previously on this blog, as much as I truly love my Sony camera, I've been quite frustrated by Sony's slow lens development. A few years ago, Sony released a few new cameras in a new mount... the Sony e-mount. At that time, I didn't give Sony much of a thought... that is... until I held one of these cameras in my hands at a local Best Buy store. The moment I held this new Sony camera body in my hands, I said, "WOW!" It was small... it was relatively lightweight... it had a HUGE sensor... and it really felt like a solid, high quality product. I went home and started researching (I never buy anything costing more than a few bucks until I research... and research more... and then research again).  I was liking what I was reading about this camera system but it was completely new with a new lens mount so lenses were few and far between at that point. I thought, "So... how long could it take to fill out a fairly complete lens lineup?... Two

Two years ago, I purchased a Sony camera. It is, by far, the best camera I have ever used in my life (and I've used a lot of them over the past 40 years) but the selection of lenses available for this new Sony camera is rather poor.  Sony produced this outstanding camera line and keeps pumping out new models of cameras bodies in this new line but Sony has been exceptionally slow at filling out a full line of lenses. To say I've been frustrated by this delay is a huge understatement. I'd like to get rid of all my old gear (other brands not worth mentioning here nor anywhere else) but I've been hanging onto and using my old gear to make up for the holes in the Sony lens lineup. The problem with trying to use my old gear is that I've advanced enough in photography that these older cameras are even more frustrating for me than Sony being slow to fill out their lens lineup. I really should also mention that after using this new Sony camera, I do not enjoy using any of

Whenever I post some photos here of songbirds, ducks, loons, any wildlife as well as the moon, I know that few will understand the distances involved. I also know that few will understand many of the terms I use pertaining to these lenses.  After capturing some images of the moon last night, I thought it would be a good idea to get a couple of comparison images to show here. In this first image we see a fairly wide view... the red arrow is pointing to an insulator on a utility pole which is just peaking above the rooftops.... Just barely visible above this rooftop is an insulator on top of a distant utility pole... For the second image, I shot a photo using my longest lens... a 600mm lens...  of course, I understand that saying a focal length of such-and-such "mm" means nothing to most people which is why I am posting this comparison for everyone to see. These comparison photos help to picture the difference between focal length in millimeters. What may be mor

I decided to write this little tip guide as a way for me to fully understand everything I've learned about bird photography thus far.  Hopefully this little self-imposed homework assignment will help me with my own bird photography as well as help others.  As I thought about all of these tips and how each of these tips manages to play upon and affect other aspects of bird photography while, at the same time, are transferable to wildlife photography in general, I knew that putting all this knowledge in writing would help to sort and organize everything in my head.  Hopefully, others whom have been struggling to capture some nice bird photos (like I had been for years) may find at least some of this information useful enough to help improve their bird and wildlife photography. First and foremost, let me point out that I am not a professional wildlife photographer.  Photography is definitely a hobby for me.  Photography is also a form of art therapy for me as a struggle with ser