Scattered Thoughts . . .

I t wasn't raining this morning so I wandered outside to do a little bit of photography testing.  I am in the process of testing a new lens adapter to be used, mostly, for wildlife photography so I stepped outside for a short while this morning to see if I could find any birds or squirrels to capture in photos.  I'd even settle for a neighborhood cat but I couldn't find anything. After sitting crouched down low to the ground and perfectly still for about ten minutes, I was thinking I wouldn't see anything and that I might be wasting my time.  The birds that I did happen to hear were off to the east too far away from me to see.  After a few more minutes I decided to very slowly and quietly wander around the yard in search of something to shoot.   A couple of chickadees flitted quickly from one tree to another about 50 feet over my head so that was a good sign.  At least I saw a couple of tiny birds so now I was wondering if maybe I had spooked all the birds when I first

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

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

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

I have a down day for my health today... and I know tomorrow will be the same... so, I'm here at my desk trying to find some simple things to keep my mind occupied with something other than my health.   There has been a lot of talk in a few of my astronomy groups about trying to capture a decent photo of the Milky Way and it seems that a lot of beginners have big problems with this. Fortunately, it really is not as difficult as people make it out to be.  Most of these beginners have brand new dSLR's which are more than capable of capturing the Milky Way yet they are having difficulty capturing a decent image so I figured I should write something with some basic info about how to accomplish this type of photography. Any dSLR, technically speaking, is capable of capturing a pretty good image of the night sky so the biggest obstacle is learning how to use your dSLR. Today's mirrorless cameras are just as adept at this type of photography and some mirrorless cameras

Sony a6000, Canon 400mm f5.6 L lens               First, while my dislocated thumb heals I'm limited in what I can get accomplished around the house so I wanted to write a little bit about a photo of the full moon that I shot a few months ago.  I belong to a few different astrophotography and astronomy groups and someone was asking about lenses for photographing the moon so I helped them out with a few tips. Afterward, I got to thinking that the info I shared with that astronomy group would probably be good to share here too.  The main reason for the request for help was to help the person choose a lens that would be good for photographing the moon. For this type of photography, most people recommend a 70-300mm lens but I've never been happy shooting with a standard 70-300mm lens. That being said, I have managed to get a few decent shots over the years using a 70-300mm lens on a smaller 4/3-sized sensor. The advantage of the smaller sensor is it doubles the equivalent

I admit that I am 'hard' on my computers. That is a plain and simple fact.  The work I do on my desktop computer constantly keeps my processors crunching numbers, spinning my hard drives and heating up. Additionally, as my cameras (both stills and video) improve each year, I find that my computer has great difficulty keeping up while getting bogged down very quickly. Because of all this graphics processing, my computers rarely last more than three years before biting the dust. Now that 4K video is becoming more mainstream and 6K cameras are available (and 8K is right around the corner), the average computers from three years ago are not at all equipped to handle streaming video of this resolution. Even trying to edit multiple 'Full HD' video clips is enough to bog down an average three year old computer. As technology moves forward, all your tools must move forward and the computer is an important tool. My current desktop computer is now more than three years old