PeterW
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May 19, 2008 17:58:19 GMT -5
Post by PeterW on May 19, 2008 17:58:19 GMT -5
That's a lovely picture Wayne. Beautifully composed and beautifully taken.
I know some people might say that with subjects like that you can't go wrong, but I know from experience, and I'll take a small bet you do too, that those 'decisive moments' don't last for long. It's only too easy to get the wrong expression or the wrong lighting or wrong something else.
But when everything comes together you get something like this.
Really well done!
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on May 17, 2008 20:31:55 GMT -5
Stephen,
In my second year as an engineering student back in 1945 (God, was it really 63 years ago!) I did a term's stint in an instrument toolroom where any job with limits greater than plus or minus a thousandth of a millimetre wasn't reckoned to be a real precision job.
But that's beside the point. On my first morning the head toolmaker, who was a caustic-tongued martinet, but a superb craftsman, made me repeat three times:
"My hands are the most valuable tools I'll ever have, so when I'm using a cutting tool of any sort I must keep my hands behind the cutting edge - the bugger can't cut backwards."
After that I spent a week learning the correct way to use a hand file and another week learning how to use a metal scraper to produce a flat surface. After that came weeks of how to use a micrometer and vernier caliper, how to use taps and dies, how to harden, temper and sharpen hand tools and lathe tools, how to do simple turning and milling, screwcutting and so on, and so on.
Every tool had to be cleaned and put back in its wooden box immediately after use, not left lying on the bench until clearing up time - and God help anyone foolish enough to leave even a small amount of swarf on a machine tool or, worse, commit the cardinal sin of laying a tool down on one of the very expensive surface plates.
In the last two weeks of the term I did actually get to make something, a one-inch cube of steel that had to be a sliding fit, whichever way you turned it, through a square hole cut in a quarter-inch thick steel plate.
I have to admit that my standards in using hand tools and small machine tools have dropped more than somewhat over the years spent in design offices, and even more years writing and taking photographs for a living, but I still remember a lot of the training even if I don't always apply it.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on May 17, 2008 6:03:29 GMT -5
Oh, Bob! That sounds like an idea born of desperation (or exasperation).
IMHO trying to lever the ring out is a good way to ruin the lens. The ring won't 'pop out', believe me. Soft aluminium has little or no 'spring'. It just bends.
You might possibly manage to lever it out, but with a 99.9% chance of distorting both the ring and the lens barrel. The threads are very fine pitch, and I doubt if you'd ever get it together again.
If the ring was made to unscrew, the only chance of getting it out and getting it back again is to unscrew it.
A possible alternative to lighter fluid is acetone ( nail varnish remover, but not the 'oily' sort). If that doesn't help to free things I would go with the idea suggested by Peter S, to drill two opposing small holes in the ring and then use a lens wrench.
If you can't get a 1mm drill bit most decent tool or hardware stores keep 1/16 in (1.59 mm) drill bits. You don't need a big power or hand drill with a bit this small. Drilling by hand with the bit held in pin vice (vise?) is slow, but not too tedious in soft aluminium. Drill the holes deep enough to allow the wrench to get a good purchase.
You'll need a guide indentation, but I don't think a needle point will give you a big enough guide to stop the drill bit wandering on a sloping surface. In aluminium, and sometimes in soft brass, I use a pointed awl to make the guide indentation. A pointed punch and a hammer are too brutal for this sort of work.
Good luck.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on May 16, 2008 18:48:11 GMT -5
Nice cockchafer pic John.
Haven't seen any down here yet this year. We also used to get a very buzzy but harmless flying creature, black and about three quarters of an inch long, which we used to call a June Bug, but I don't know its proper name. Come to think of it I haven't seen any of those for a few years. Maybe widespread use of insecticides by farmers has killed most of them off?
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on May 16, 2008 18:38:41 GMT -5
Pleased to hear your walklets are progressing, Gene.
Lovely picture of columbine blossom.
John:
You'd have to include Harlequin as well.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on May 16, 2008 18:21:58 GMT -5
Congratulations Wayne. There must have been hundreds of pictures of Nixon published on that and other tours.
Nice to have yours selected and some recognition and a credit instead of having pictures pirated.
Shame about no fee, but never mind. The exposure might yet bring in profitable enquiries.
If people ask my permission to use any of my pictures I usually give it without a fee for use in a restricted circulation club magazine or on a club's website, and send them an emailed copy.
If it's for advertising use, or by a well-known publisher who is using the picture commercially, then I always charge a fee.
With low-circulation shoe-string publications like one-man-band hobby magazines and the like, I usually email them a copy and ask for a free advert in the issue in lieu of a fee. Most are only too pleased to do this, and over the years it's brought in quite a few enquiries and orders for reprint books and hi-res "photo quality" copies of pictures.
I've had quite a few pictures pirated, but usually they were lousy copies because they'd been taken from low-res screen shots or from screened printed pictures and the pirates weren't skilled enough in PS to get rid of the screening completely. They've often finished up either with very poor definition or with a moire pattern across the picture. I've even had people try, not very successfully, to take out a visible copyright notice.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on May 15, 2008 6:55:54 GMT -5
Nice pictures, Alex, especially the close-up of your pug.
I agree with you about Canon's 35-70 'short zoom'. I have both the 3.5 macro version and the older 4.5 non-macro version. Both are beautiful lenses. The 3.5 is my standard user lens. I find it covers 90% of the pictures I want to take.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on May 13, 2008 18:12:33 GMT -5
Andrew:
Thanks so much for that information and the picture. I hadn't realised that the shutter release rod screwed into the linkage underneath. It's difficult to see without a heck of a lot more dismantling because the folding struts get in the way.
However, I shone the light from a tiny LED inside, and the part of the linkage just under the shutter button rod does indeed have a hole in it. By trying small drill bits on a 'go - no go' basis, a 1.25 mm drill shank just passes through the hole but a 1.3 mm drill shank doesn't.
This would seem to indicate a tapping size drill of 1.25 mm diameter which according to my 'small metric thread data chart' is the tapping size for a 1.6 mm metric thread. Have you got a metric caliper or micrometer to check the nominal o/d of the thread on the end of the rod in your picture and confirm this?
I've had a hunt through my 'small screws and other bits' tin but I haven't got any metric threaded rod, or even a long screw, that size. There's shop not far away that caters for people who make radio controlled model cars and aircraft. They keep lots of useful little bits and pieces so I'll try them later this week if I get the chance. Even if they haven't got any they might be able to get some for me, or suggest where I could try.
I found a couple of wholesale places on the internet, but they're not interested in catering for small orders. Everything is packaged in fifties or hundreds. Carriage is free on orders of over £50, but there's a minimum charge of £5 postage on orders of less value, and anyway I don't really want fifty pieces of small threaded rod.
Thanks again for the info on how the rod fits. Now I know how the rod fits I can finish the rest of the camera and make up a rod later without any dismantling.
You say you're short of a few yourself, which isn't really surprising if you collect Weltas. With only that tiny amount of thread to hold them I'm not surprised the rods sometimes come loose and get lost. I wouldn't class it among the finest of engineering design ideas.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on May 12, 2008 16:04:34 GMT -5
Very neat indeed, Wayne. As you say, not very rare, but in that condition more rare than most examples I would guess. Lovely gift.
Is that red machine beside it an outsize coffee mill? "They gotta lotta awful coffee in Brazil" to paraphrase Francis Albert.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on May 12, 2008 15:51:49 GMT -5
Mickey,
Would 'Two words 3 & 7 related in a colourful way to a once Irish immigrant part of Toronto' be a good crossword clue, or a red herring? Or have I blotted my copybook?
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on May 11, 2008 18:24:44 GMT -5
Wot, no repliker wochis?
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on May 11, 2008 15:49:45 GMT -5
I had a wonderfully headed spam message today. I was tempted to open it to see if there were any more good laughs, but decided not to as that would probably have led to a new deluge of spam from the same source. I quote it here as spelled:
"peterwallage@gmail.com. would you like a bachelers degree in inglesh?"
Er... no thanks. Though I was tempted to ask if the degree was in litracher or gramer.
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on May 8, 2008 19:29:00 GMT -5
Alex, I'm not suggesting for a moment that you poke around inside your Canon T90 if you're unfamiliar with electronics, but if you want to have a look at how complex the circuitry is go to www.canonfd.com/t90serv/T90service.pdfThis isn't a user's manual, nor a DIY book, it's the official Canon service training manual and should really, as it suggests, be read in conjunction with looking at the appropriate Canon video, but I've no idea where a video can be obtained. This manual is part of the Canon FD Documentaion Project, home page www.canonfd.com a very useful site for anyone with Canons using the FD lens mount. The T90 repair and service manual is possibly the most clear of all the Canon manuals, but even so it's quite sobering in its complexity. I know next to nothing about electronics, but I used the T70 manual from the same source to try to find out why the up/down switch only went 'up' on a spare T70 body I picked up for next to nothing. It wouldn't go 'down'. I traced the probem eventually, though it took me nearly three hours, but couldn't do anything about it because the switch itself was faulty, and it's a plastic-welded sealed unit. I phoned Canon's UK service department, and the technician there was as helpful as he could be, but he told me that NO parts are now available for pre-EOS Canons, not even from Japan, so although I now know what the trouble is I'm no nearer to fixing it unless I can find a broken donor T70 with a good switch. No real hurry, though, because my 'good' T70 is still fuinctioning perfectly (fingers crossed!) If the manual DOES tempt you to go inside remember that it's very easy to make any subsequent repair by an experienced repair man even more expensive, so on your own head be it! PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on May 5, 2008 11:11:57 GMT -5
John: So good to see you're out and about and taking pictures again. Trust you'll soon be back to full health, but don't push it. Let things come naturally.
Best wishes
PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on May 5, 2008 11:05:21 GMT -5
I intended to carry on with masking and cleaning today, but the question of the shutter release rod kept niggling me. In the end I had a poke around in my materials box and found a length of 2.5 mm o/d brass tubing that was a nice sliding fit in the tube in the camera. Digging in a tin of bits left over from the days when I used to tinker with old watches and clocks yielded a chromium plated watch winding button and stem. The stem was a nice light hammer fit inside my brass tubing. I pondered for a while on how to stop the brass tube just lifting out of the top of the camera. Without a great deal of further dismantling involving rivets I couldn’t get a tool inside to hold a screw or something similar to fit inside the bottom of the tube. All I could reach the end of the tube with was a thin screwdriver or a piece of wire ... Aha! A piece of wire. I drilled a 0.4 mm hole through the side of the tube as near to the bottom end as I could safely get it, fed it down into the camera and pushed a piece of soft iron wire (actually a piece of wire from inside a garden plant tie) through the hole. If I bent the ends over that would be quite sufficient to stop the tube lifting out. I tried it, and it worked! I marked the tube, cut it to length and tapped the watch winding stem down inside the top leaving just enough showing to screw the button on. It would probably have stayed firmly in place without any extra help, but to be on the safe side I used a cocktail stick to put a couple of drops of epoxy resin in with it. When the epoxy was set I screwed on the button and did a dummy run on the camera. It worked a treat. I didn’t even have to adjust the end of the lever where the mechanism pushes on the release lever on the shutter. Now I could get on with some cosmetic work. While the epoxy had been setting I cleaned the nickel plated wind and rewind knobs, and the exposure counter disc. I used to use either metal polish and a brush or a soak in a mixture of vinegar and salt for this sort of cleaning. Then a fellow camera tinkerer recommended a product called Cillit Bang, advertised as a super degreaser/limescale remover/rust remover and general Great Panjandrum. “It says on the bottle not to use it on aluminium, copper or brass, but you can forget that if you don’t leave the bits in all day,” he said. “Just dunk the bits in it for 30 seconds, fish them out and wash them in hot water and washing up liquid.” I bought a bottle at my local supermarket, and today was the first time I’d tried it. I found a small plastic tub, put some Cillit Bang in it and dropped the bits in. 30 seconds later I fished them out and washed them in hot water and washing up liquid. To say I was amazed would be an understatement. The parts came out looking as if they’d just come back from the platers. Powerful stuff. I don’t know if it’s available in other countries under the name Cillit Bang, but it’s made by Rickitt Benckiser. The only clue to what’s in it is a note on the label which says: “contains 5% non-ionic surfactants. With sensitive skin use plastic gloves”. It didn’t seem to affect my rhino-hide fingers, and I’m very pleased with it. It could save hours of work. The shutter button and rod, with a piece of wire through it, and some of the cleaned nickel plated bits (compare them with the colour of the bits in the first picture). Not a great deal to show for about four and a half hours’ work, but I’m over a major hurdle so I’m feeling pleased. PeterW
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