IMALlama
Here are two somewhat heavy handed edits using the jpeg on .world. Obligatory I am not a great editor, but I think the fog needs a touch more definition and a more contrasting background to pop better.
The first photo has:
- local contrast to give the fog a little more definition. This is the only thing I masked, everything below was applied to the whole photo
- shadows and highlights, mostly to crush the treeline behind the fog some and give the fog more contrast
- tone curve + base curve, again to add some more contrast
- haze removal to make the tree line darker
The second edit only has the addition of low light vision to de saturate and further add some contrast.
Very cool, glad to hear it worked out so well!
Local or did you need to travel? Even though you were "only" performing for say ~30 minutes/day were you able to do any other work those days?
This does seem like a good hourly rate, but if you had to travel there and back, and couldn't do other things for $$ in your free time, the deal doesn't become as good sounding.
Odds are you could make the fog pop with a bit of post processing. Amusingly, if you took this on a phone it might have been actively fighting against the fog. If you have a raw file you'll have a bit more leeway for editing, but messing with the JPEG should be fine.
The scanner will only work if your model is absolutely flat. I spent some time trying to model a baseplate for my camera that I wanted a glove like fit on. In the end I had to iterate a ton. I suspect this was due to
- The camera base had a 1mm or so fillet around the edges and the scanner has a very narrow focal plane. This made it hard to precisely place the spline
- I was probably a bit too obsessive about the tight fit initially and would have been better off starting with a looser one
Good luck!
+1 for a flatbed scanner. Put a ruler somewhere on the bed for scale. If you use fusion 360, you can add an image to a sketch and scale it to be the correct size. That said, if you're going for a perfect fit it's really hard to beat a pair of calipers and things like radius guides unless it's a super complex shape.
Great call out on lens distortion. Photoshop, along with most other high feature image editors editors, will often have a lens correction option if they have a built in profile for your lens. Darktable is a good FOSS option. You still need to be absolutely parallel to your object though.
I spent 15 years living in central NJ and there really isn't much to do there, especially during the winter when you can't do outdoors things.
We're currently living in SE MI and the Detroit Metro has so much more to do. Yeah, it's not the absolute best but we have a great art museum, a zoo, tons of outdoor parks, and a number of medium sized museums. Relatively cheap land and taxes means there are plenty of commercial places to take the kids to for indoor play. Between these and the museums we keep the kids busy during the winter. Every "town" in the Metro has an annual event, so when it's warm out theres basically one every weekend. Tons of art and music festivals, along with car shows.
NYC and Philly have nicer museums, and more cultural attractions, but I suspect they don't have as many indoor play type things. I also have no idea about the school situation. Thankfully, our public schools are pretty good here.
I didn't realize you could own apartments, but I guess that makes sense. I doubt it would be cheap, but it's good to know it's an option.
Suburbia hell checking in. We have a family of four and our 3 bed 1.75 bath (shower stall vs full bath) with mortgage, taxes, and insurance is less than $1,250/mo on a 30 year mortgage. It is modest in terms of square footage, but is well maintained and has a full basement and a green space for the kids to run. We tend to buy 2-3 year old cars and then drive them into the ground. The nice thing with the house is that our monthly payment is basically fixed until it's paid off since tax increases are capped at 2% per year. The downside to a house is being on the hook for all the maintenance.
We're considering moving and I'm very curious to try to game out what the actual financials of moving somewhere like NYC or Philly would be. Salaries would likely go up some, rent would likely go up significantly, no cars, and the tradeoffs between owning and renting. Anything else you would point at?
Preface: I'm jealous.
That out of the way, I think this really depends on where you live and your job. Carless in single family detached housing suburbia does not sound like fun. Being carless seems like a no-brainer in a dense area with decent public transportation and/or within walking distance of your job.
I work adjacent to a group that does speech recognition. There's a massive amount of variation in regional dialects and that's before you get to non-native speakers. The you have people like my mother in law who doesn't have an accent, but her diction and grammar are... unique.
If someone is speaking in sentences you can use context clues to infer intent, but it's a lot more challenging when you're just getting spoken commands.
I suspect it's a training/sample gap, but it's likely going to be really hard to get to 100%.
I am in the process of buttoning up a Nitehawk conversion on my Voron. I also replaced my extruder thermistor with an OE replacement purchased from a reputable vendor.
Post setup, my heated bed is reading spot on (it's 18.3 C in my basement aka 65 F). I verified that my extruder is also at ambient temperature by wedging a Thermapen under its silicone sock and letting it acclimate for 10 minutes. The I'm not sure why the extruder would be reading high.
I bought a spare thermistor and wired it in. The result was identical.
Thoughts? Ideas? I'm pretty sure I have the Nitehawk and thermistor set up correctly.
[extruder]
step_pin: nhk:gpio23
dir_pin: nhk:gpio24
enable_pin: !nhk:gpio25
heater_pin: nhk:gpio9
sensor_pin: nhk:gpio29
pullup_resistor: 2200
sensor_type: ATC Semitec 104NT-4-R025H42G`
As an aside, titling these things is getting harder by the post lol
Klipper aborted the print with:
Heater extruder not heating at expected rate Transition to shutdown state: Heater extruder not heating at expected rate See the 'verify_heater' section in docs/Config_Reference.md
Before any of this started,I goobered my original Rapido, so I replaced it with a Rapido 2. It's been in the printer since April, but I haven't done a ton of printing with it. After the replacement, all was well for a while. At some point, Klipper started randomly tripping thermal runaway protection. The spikes were instantaneous, so I suspected a wire break. It wouldn't be my first and they're usually easy to find. I moved the tool head around trying to find it with no success. I pulled apart both cable chains (yay Voron) to look for the wire break and didn't find one. I flipped the printer updside down and connections at the MCU - everything was fine. I went through the hot end and inadvertently pulled the thermistor out of the m3 slug. Here's a stock photo:
Suspecting a potential wire break at the thermistor, I manipulated the wiring to no real effect. Inside the M3 bung was some dried white stuff, which I think was probably Boron Nitride Paste. I bought some more from Slice Engineering and reinstalled the thermistor.
Two things changed after this. First, the terminator seems to be reading lower than it did before. I say this because I have a ton more stringing than I did previously. Second, the temperature is no longer spiking but it is doing this high frequency oscillation thing now.
The oscillation only happens once the printer is moving quickly. If it's still, or moving slowly, things are fine.
Thoughts? I'm suspecting the thermistor, but would like to troubleshoot if possible vs just throwing parts at the printer.
It looks like its throwing its arms in the air, much like I am doing right now realizing that my ambition of uploading bee photos from August is three months behind.
Title basically. I've been "long term renting" a few camera bodies by purchasing used gear with the intention of selling what I didn't want to keep. I'm now at the point of thinning the heard. I'm partially writing this for myself, but am more than open to feedback :)
The cameras in the post photo are an OM-1 and an A7 III, but I'm really comparing the OM-1 against an A9 II. The A7 III is generally a solid camera, but its mechanical shutter is somewhat loud to use in places like museums with the kiddos and its electronic shutter catches tons of banding from modern lighting. Both the OM-1 and the A9 II solve that problem, although the A9 II does so a bit better (yay faster readout).
What do I take photos of?
Candid kids (playing, sports, etc), some pets, some bugs, some plants, some landscape. But mostly kids in various states of motion.
What lighting do I shoot in?
In other words, do I really need the ISO/DR performance? There are a few answers to this question. First, I shoot in a wide range of lighting:
Second, when I shoot in lower light I am able to decrease my shutter speed and/or use fast glass to keep ISO fairly low:
Third, I am wary of needing to push ISO in the future for faster motion + lower light, but this isn't currently a concern.
What kind of lenses am I using these days?
For shorter distances, fast(ish) primes. On the long end, telephoto zooms.
On e-mount, I have a pair of Sigma 35mm lenses: their f/1.4 and f/2.0. The 2.0 is much more compact and is on the camera most of the time. I also have Sony's 50mm 1.8, which I will likely upgrade if I keep the camera. Closing out my e-mount collection is Tamron's 150-500.
On M43, I have the 25mm 1.2 pro and 12-40mm. I don't yet have a long telephoto, but will buy one if I decide to stick with the OM-1.
OM-1 Pros
- Of the cameras in this comparison, the burst rate of the OM-1 is frankly nuts
- Feels more mechanical than it is. Turns on nearly immediately, even when sitting for a long time, and its controls are all very responsive
- New M43 glass is cheaper than FF glass, used M43 glass is very available
- M43 is a much more macro friendly mount, especially once you factor in 2x FF equivalency. For example, the 12-40 has 0.3x magnification, but when you factor in that the sensor is half the size of a FF sensor this is equivalent to 0.6x
- The promise of compact
- The promise of fast AF
OM-1 Cons
- Minor one first. Since the camera isn't very popular accessories are somewhat harder to find and/or have less verity available
- Even when in focus priority, it will happily take photos that are out of focus. This seems to be more of an issue for humans than say birds, but I happen to want to take photos of humans
- Human face/eye detect works fairly well as long as faces/eyes leave the frame when they're lost. If the face/eye stays in the frame, and the camera starts to lose focus, it will continue to indicate focus on the face/eye as it slowly goes soft
- FF lenses can be even more compact once you get into FF equivalency, especially when you get into shorter focal lengths. More on this later
- The depth of field preview thing bugs me. For those who haven't shot M43, their preview (eg waving the camera around to get framing) and focusing happens wide open. They only step down when you're taking photos. They do have a depth of field preview button you can use, but the workflow turns into: press button, camera steps down, focus, camera opens, take photo, camera steps down 'just in time'
- If you want GPS coordinates in your photos the companion app is very silly. The OM-1 can encode GPS coordinates as you take photos, but only if you launch the camera app and record your location as you're walking around. This requires you to take an action in the app. Leaving the app in this mode will drain your phone battery. Sony/Nikon/Fuji simply require the companion app to be running in the background on your phone
- This is a quibble, but in a series of photos the OM-1 will fiddle with exposure a lot more than any other camera I've used. It's easy enough to address in post, but it's somewhat distracting while culling two very similarly framed photos with slightly different expsorues
A9 II Pros
- Very easy to use autofocus. Set it to tracking flexible spot M or L, aim the camera at the thing you want, engage autofocus, forget about it
- If it loses a face eye, it tells you immediately and often before that face/eye is out of focus. I've taken very few out of focus photos with this camera
- Preview and focus are stepped down, although it will occasionally go wide open to acquire initial focus. Once focus has been achieved it will step back down
- Huge quantity of available glass to fit basically any need/use case
- Ability to push ISO
- Large ecosystem around the camera
A9 II Cons
- The HMI is laggy, the camera can take a long time to turn on if it has sat for a while
- Expensive glass
- Physical size/weight of of lens when you get into bigger focal lengths
One sentence each
A9 II = very easy to focus on taking photos (framing, depth of field, etc)
OM-1 = the promise of compact, very fast
On compactness
On the shorter side of the focal range: Once you factor in FF equivalency (2x better total light gathering thanks to surface area, 2 stop depth of field difference), my 25mm f1/2 turns into a 50mm 2.5. This means that I can put something like Sony's 50mm 2.5 G or Sigma's 50mm F2 DG DN on the A9 II and have very comparable image quality with a more compact lens.
On the telephoto end, my 150-500 spends a lot of time between 350 and 500. It's a sharp lens, it focuses quickly, renders nicely, and I really appreciate 500mm. But it's heavy at 1.7 kg and the zoom ring is pretty stiff. The closest M43 lens to it are the pair of 100-400s. They will admittedly gain me quite a bit of reach, but I don't need that reach right now. Physically, they're not much smaller than the 150-500, but they're 600 grams (the Olympus) and 750 grams (the Panasonic) lighter respectively. I do wonder how sharp the Panasonic 100-400 is and am somewhat wary of the Olympus 100-400 since in Sony land its Sigma counterpart has the reputation for somewhat slow AF.
Or maybe there are no pockets?
The world of bee look alike is big! This seems to be a pollinator, and has a decent amount of pollen on its hind legs. It does have an ant body type, but also appears to have wings.
Bee?
Hover fly?
Ant?
Hybrid?
Something else?
Years ago, nearly a decade ago in fact, my wife enrolled in a pottery class at our local community college. We planted a shrub while she was enrolled, dug up some clay in the process, and her professor let her make something with it and fire it. To everyone's surprise, it went smoothly.
Enter kids, increasing work responsibilities, etc. A decade passes. Along the way we discovered our yard is 2-3" of top soil followed by nearly 100% gray clay. There's no marbeling, basically no sediment, nothing. Just slightly sandy/gritty gray clay.
I recently buried a gutter downspout and added a French drain in our yard, so I trenched my way through a ton of clay. I set some aside, since our oldest kid is now messaging with clay at our community center.
Here's the quick rundown of how I processed it:
- Manually remove the topsoil layer
- Toss clay into a 5 gallon bucket
- Cover in water, let sit a day or so
- Mix with a grout/thinset/cement mixing paddle attached to a drill to break up the chunks
- Sive for coarse material, like roots. I used some burlap as a screen and poured between buckets
- After you've screened the clay, remove the excess water. You can just let the bucket(s) sit and wait for evaporation to do its thing, you can wait a day or two for some water to separate and pour it off, you can use some fabric you don't care about much as a cheesecloth, etc
- Once the clay is the appropriate consistency, make something!
I made was a ceramic fish following the instructions of our oldest, who had just made something similar at the community center. The one pictured was meant to be the ugly sacrificial test piece before the "nice" one got fired, but our youngest broke the nice one into pieces, so I guess the ugly one is the nice one now.
I left the fish under our porch for a few weeks to dry out. After that, I put them into our fire pit, lit a small fire to warm them up somewhat gradually, and then built the fire up over a half hour or so.
Burningaton:
Post burn:
Yeah, I know they're called basket or corbicula, but pockets is more fun.
Ha, thanks. I'm glad you found the post somewhat informative! It looks like it was a pretty cool scene.