Just been busy, and haven't felt like posting. So much for my "try and post at least every three days" commitment. Oh, well....
The last two days have been fabulous; bright, sunny skies, moderate winds, and temps in the low 60's. I even got the garage swept out in preparation for Spring Cleaning! Hopefully this is a sign that Spring is rapidly approaching. I expect two more snows before the season is over. Usually one of them is heavy, wet snow that breaks branches and things, and the other one is a "Nuisance Level" storm.
This morning opened up overcast and drizzly, but it quit raining around 1600. Radar shows there's still a lot of rain out there, and some of it looks intense, due East of Denver, out towards the state line, but I don't think we'll get anymore tonight.
Work continues on the Heathkit transmitter, and I've taken pix of the work. Which has led me back down the Camera Rabbit Hole in search of a Nikon Macro lens. I have some excellent Nikon "General Purpose" lenses, and a couple of killer telephoto lenses, but nothing for close-up work, which is what Macro lenses excel at. I'll probably be getting one of these, a Nikon "AF-S FX Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8G ED" lens, which seems to best fit using the selection guides on several websites, and my intended use. This one has some "ED" glass elements in it, which is to correct for chromatic (color) aberration, the blue and yellow fringing some lens designs produce out towards their edges. And it's an f/2.8, which means it has a very narrow Depth of Field wide open. This means it's very good at keeping the main subject is perfect focus, while softly blurring the background/foreground. It really makes the subject pop out of the picture. I can't get close enough sometimes with the lenses I have to get the subject to fill the frame, and this will allow that. They also work very well for portrait photography, so I'll get some Really Good Pix of The Little Guy this year.
And speaking of which, he celebrated birthday #4 last Saturday! We had a small gathering, and there was pizza, ice cream, and CAKE! A splendid time was had by all.
He's now gone through his "Paw Patrol" phase and moved on to Super Heroes. Sooooo, all the Paw Patrol toys have been packed away in a YUGE Rubbermaid Roughneck bin, and the former "Paw Patrol Room" is now the "Avengers Room". Yes, redecorating is involved. And seeing as the bedrooms are on the second floor here, and the basement storage area is in the basement (duh), I get 5 flights of cardio exercise with each round trip! Sweet Little Wife is now in the middle stages of planning for when grandchild #5 arrives. TLG's current bedroom is the smallest in the house, and with a little brother/sister coming, she's thinking of making the current Avengers Room into their bedroom, and reverting the smaller, middle bedroom to her use. So we're prowling Nextdoor.com and craigslist for some kid's furnishings.
And he's discovered the Lego kits of various Super Hero vehicles and "accessories". These seem to be based on the hugely popular Lego Movies that people of a certain age group are fascinated by. These kits aren't your Father's Lego kits! They're much more akin to the "Snap Together" model cars of my youth. They use Lego-style pins and recesses to snap together, but there are many, many custom molded pieces for each kit, although most of the kits have common parts, usually molded in a different color.
I built this one last night, a Lego "Ironman Mech Suit", your basic Armored Fighting Suit.
And the assembled product. This is where a Macro lens shines. This was a close as I could focus, with my 18~70mm zoom lens all the way out to 70mm.
It came in three bags of parts, and took about 30 minutes per bag to assemble. The front "breastplate" hinges down so you can put Tony at the controls, as shown above, but I'm sure Jarvis could run it remotely if requested.
I've also built the Lego Spiderman car, but I'm not sure where it is right now, maybe upstairs.
Hope y'all have a great upcoming weekend!
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Out walking the dog this morning by the local wetland, the blackbirds are back and singing like mad. First I've seen them this year.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed an increased level of squirrel activity. The places they were digging in last Fall are now getting dug up! Guess they really do bury food....
ReplyDeleteWe can tell when spring is about here by the return of the turkey buzzards. We have seen several over the last few days.
ReplyDeleteWe pretty much don't consider it Spring until the Canada geese leave!
DeleteAnd NEVER, ever plant anything before Mother's Day! SLW lost about $100 in plants by thinking "Spring" was here.
It wasn't.....
Ah yes, Lego pieces, the modern caltrop!!!
ReplyDeleteSo far these aren't too bad. They're smaller pieces than the Legos we grew up, and instead of tenderizing the entire bottom of your foot, they might bite a toe.
DeleteLike the AFS, good work. How's the mining going? I see the pup's playfully cavorting about in .05 land. No bad thing, consolidate that launchpad before the moonshot.
ReplyDeleteDoge Core took two weeks to fully synchronize with the block chain, and help process transactions. I *think* this is like entry-level "mining", as they toss you a coin once in a while. I fudged, though. I paid for one hour of mining time on a real mining machine, and got 112 coins for $10. Yes, I paid about double the listed value, but I wanted to get started quickly.
DeleteThe first one of TLG's Lego things I built was the Spiderman car with 212 pieces. SLW had started it with him, and had wrong parts in wrong places. I had to strip it down and start form zero. Took a couple of hours to build it. The AFS, with three bags containing 148 pieces, went much faster.
About that Nikon 60mm f2.8 macro lens you mention.
ReplyDeleteI have the same exact combination from Canon. It's my go to lens for macro and especially if I need a known magnification. It's 1:1 at its closest focus about 8 inches.
I meant to say this the other day, but forgot as soon as I got up to do something. My reminder was having to use that lens several times today to remind me of what I'm doing when I have to put things back together.
I think the Nikon lens will focus down to about 6-1/2".
DeleteI don't really "need" a $600 lens, but it sure will let me take better close-up pix!