Category: Photography

Fish Eye Lens for Holga 120 Cameras

Holga fisheye lensNow this is an odd bird. I never thought I’d see an auxiliary lens kit for a Holga camera. If you didn’t know, the Holga 120 format camera is an amazingly cheap medium format camera in both price and quality. The only reason that the cameras aren’t serving as filler in a sea wall somewhere is that it takes a darn unique photo. For some examples check out the Holga Fisheye pool on Flickr. Something about the cheap plastic lens. Not too shabby if you’re on a budget and want to shoot medium format film. The lens will give you a 60degree FoV and a focal length of 25.2mm and even comes with two mounting rings. A very alluring offering if you ask me.

TeamDroid Camera Shop – Holga Auxiliary Fish Eye Lens for Holga 120 Cameras

Memories of Japan

Japan 2002 Flickr photo set After years of thinking about it I have decided that it is high time that I post my Japan 2002 trip photos to Flickr. I had all of them on my old gallery page on TeamDroid but after this last move I have decided not to install the software again. It breaks every time I have to move my files and that has been quite a bit lately.
Getting everything right in Flickr is very time consuming. Each photo has key information that I need to enter into the meta data fields. Things like title and description are somewhat simple. Just a basic name of the subject of the photo and some thought about the image. The tags are a bit harder as I am attempting to use Japanese text on some of them. Things like ‘??‘ (Japan) and "??" (Tokyo) are easy but it’s a little harder with ‘???‘ (vending machine). I still have to add the images to groups but that will be much later. I’m not looking forward to that part of the project.
In reviewing these photos I’m amazed at just how poorly my Nikon 950 did while I was there. I think it’s mostly the 180 degree fish eye lens that I used on a lot of my images. I love the effect but the edge focus and fringing goes to hell if the aperture isn’t stopped way down. Oh well, I still got some pretty good photos. I’m looking forward to my next trip where I can use newer equipment and get a chance to take some film cameras with me (actually I did have one film camera on this trip. I had my stereo Realist format camera with me but the shutter broke on the second day)
Not all of these are ‘award winners’ by any stretch of the word. These are just vacation snaps, memories of fantastic journey.
So, once this lengthy process is finished my Japan 2002 set will be done. Then it will be time for my trips to Oregon, Fargo, South Dakota, and a bunch of other places.

Japan 2002 set

Strange Creatures from the Deep

Football fishWho needs science fiction aliens when we have them right here. I mean, most of these critters look to have been drawn up by the best special effects designers in Hollywood.

On dry land, most organisms are confined to the surface, or at most to altitudes of a hundred meters—the height of the tallest trees. In the oceans, though, living space has both vertical and horizontal dimensions: with an average depth of 3800 meters, the oceans offer 99% of the space on Earth where life can develop. And the deep sea, which has been immersed in total darkness since the dawn of time, occupies 85% of ocean space, forming the planet’s largest habitat. Yet these depths abound with mystery. The deep sea is mostly uncharted—only about 5 percent of the seafloor has been mapped with any reasonable degree of detail—and we know very little about the creatures that call it home. Current estimates about the number of species yet to be found vary between ten and thirty million. The deep sea no longer has anything to prove; it is without doubt Earth’s largest reservoir of life.

[via science redigg]
The Deep

Pick it up on Amazon.com – The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss

STEREO Grabs First 3-D Images of the Sun

Our sun in 3DBreak out the 3D glasses because the big brains at NASA have done it again!

NASA’s Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) satellites have provided the first three-dimensional images of the sun. For the first time, scientists will be able to see structures in the sun’s atmosphere in three dimensions. The new view will greatly aid scientists’ ability to understand solar physics and there by improve space weather forecasting.

These are some of the best 3D astro images I have ever seen. For an even bigger treat download some of the videos. Seeing the mass ejections and sunspots with real depth is astounding.

Sun in 3d

3D Video Blogging the Next Big Thing?


Ok kids, grab your anaglyph (red/green) glasses and see if you think that this might be the ‘next big thing’ to hit the ‘Net.
What you are about to see is the product of two DV camcorders, a firewire interface and some nifty software. The nifty software is ‘Stereo Movie Maker’ and it’s free and quite handy for making all thing moving and stereo. The firewire cards and DV camcorders, well your on your own getting your hands on those. By the use of red/green glasses a 3D stereo effect is achieved. The sudden inclusion of depth in the moving image and impressive to say the least. I just wish there were more people doing this out there on the Interweb. You can see more examples of 3D vlogging on RogerTube’s YouTube page or better yet, go visit his web page for even more theory and application of this very interesting method. Enjoy!