wiskerke

Yes and the lottery has been lousy all year as well. 😂 wim

Sou Sou. Presentation or newsletters. Very low $$ Take a silly picture and you get a silly fee. - after Tom Lehrer: ask a silly question get a silly answer in New Math. But then I am just watching the Vogue AI interview of Billie Eilish and at 5.20 Billie says to the machine: I mean that was a stupid question. And the machine quips: give bad answers get bad questions. So does that mean pay silly fees; get silly images? Hmmm lots to think over on a rainy Sunday. I can recommend that interview (AI-?) btw: more thoughts for that rainy day. wim

Haha! Maybe they're from the same people that brought us these: Or they're from the Twilight Zone.... wim

In this earlier post, there's a link to a full size image. The straps are quite clear there. The hip belt (which hangs loose in that pic) goes through some sort of tunnel or some lugs that most bags have. And I wear it on my back when not in use, in safe areas. It slides to my side when I need something. Or in front when I have to change larger lenses or adapters or need some small stuff from one of the pockets. When I want to sit down, I click the belt buckle open and have my bag in my lap in under a second. The same on an escalator or in public transport, but then usually without unbuckling. I do open it when I have to climb steep stairs or move quickly. A bit like when I would unbutton my jacket. Also those buckles can make quite a snapping sound, which sometimes seem to signal alertness: very useful. 😁 wim

And that's a good thing. So the next is just for your information. It's just that I am used to working from my bag while I move. And a backpack gives others access to my gear in stead of myself. 😁 The loop is difficult to imagine and the use of it even more so. Until you try it. So if you have some sort of bag that has a shoulder strap that you can take off, this could be a small bag or a purse even, use that to try it out. Take an 8 ft string, could be any material, it's just to demonstrate the principle. Now loop the string through the eyelets or D-rings that would normally hold the shoulder strap, from one side to the other. Tie the string so it becomes a long 8 ft loop. Pull up the shortest part so the whole thing looks like before when the shoulder strap was on. Hang it on your right shoulder (if you're right handed) like before, just now the shoulder strap consists of a double string. Pick one of the strings and lift it up over your head onto your left shoulder et voila. It helps if the strings are untangled. Which is a lot easier with a regular strap. Nowadays I simply use two straps from two different Lowepro bags. They clasp to each other with the sliders that come with them. I have made my own straps in the past and they do look neater. Now if the strings are untangled, you can move your shoulders up and down independently, while your bag stays level. And the weight sort of rests on two shoulders. Sort of, because most weight will still rest on the shoulder that is closest. In this case on the right hand side. But it does help. The sliding hip belt helps some more. Because like with a good backpack, most of the weight should be transferred to your hips, not your shoulders. In my case I'm guesstimating 40% goes to the hips; 35% to the right shoulder and 25% to my left shoulder. My hip belt is an ordinary plain belt. It's webbing, actually of car safety belt quality, also that width, with a simple quick release buckle. Mine is plastic or nylon. Any outdoors, hunting or camping gear shop will have those items. The car safety belt quality webbing is not only more durable, but it's much smoother and thinner. Mine is olive drab. The rest of my gear is definitely not military looking. Not any more. Never ever go into an area where you may be mistaken for a combatant of any which side with camo or military style gear. That may have been cool 25 or 30 years ago, but nowadays it could get you killed. wim

Again: emptying your cache will probably solve this. wim

Probably because there are just no data. I just had a refund before lunch followed by a re-sale after lunch an hour or so later of the same image for the same amount. wim

Clearing your cache will probably solve that. wim

This is his grandfather on Wikipedia. I don't think there has been a Who do you think you are with the Donald yet. Maybe if he retires to Scotland. wim edit: meaning you never know who your ancestor turns out to be.

No, everything was down till well after west coast office hours. wim

Yesterday we were able to follow the story here, here, and here on Twitter. You can read some of it back there. wim

Wow! Interesting part of history that! Cornelis. It looks like his photographer painter did get his exposure right. en.wiki Dutch wiki - translated by Google Journey (or: Trip) to Chatham = Raid on the Medway And another little tidbit here. - translated by Google (The National Forensics institute recently investigated the claim and found no dna, but the team thought it plausible, because the whole history of the piece could be tracked down to 1672.) about this painting - translated by Google He ended up like this though. Most famous lynching in The Netherlands. This was one of the leaders of the conspiracy. He was created a baronet by Charles II. The whole story is a perennial favorite with 11-12 yr olds in the history lesson. wim edit 2: the documentary about the tidbit is here. Their cookies make a mess of the Google translation though. The video is in Dutch anyway.

Which would mean we should be able to see it with a pola filter and polarized light. wim

I know it's useless knowledge, but here Astrantia is called Zeeuws Knoopje; button from Zeeland (southern coastal province of the Netherlands and pretty powerful in the 17th C). Whether it resembles this: or the other way around is still being debated I think. If you zoom in on this chap's uniform buttons, you'll see them in use: He's the leader of what's here called the Trip to Chatham. And what's called the Raid on the Medway over at the other side of the North Sea. wim

Metric is un-american. Ronald Reagan said so and killed off the United States Metric Board. The fact is that one of the co-developers of the metric system was Benjamin Franklin. And that the US decided to go metric with the Metric Act in 1866. That must be a typo, no? No. 1866. wim edit: btw have you ever tried putting gallons in your tank on either side of the 49th parallel?

Have you ever seen this one from 1999? Cranberries album cover. It features prominently here: Unless that really is an actual giant eyeball tormenting that naked man, like his soul. In that case, I apologize. 😁 Maybe because Storm Thorgerson (of Hipgnosis fame) omitted the dropshadow. 😂 Could he have known yours? Or is it a case of great minds think alike? Yours somehow reminds me a lot of number six btw. wim

Awww the MLK Library by Mies and now by Mecanoo. Did they build that thing on the roof? It was a much un-loved building back then. wim

On nisen bokeh, Roger Cicala (of LensRentals) four years ago said this, and I tend to agree by now, even without having seen the why of the effect caused by some filters: Cicala: Dec 12, 2016 https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4090070?page=2 One thing I would like to point out is we tend to over-generalize in this type of discussion somewhat. Nisen Bokeh can have a lot of causes. Some are correctible: bad filter, a bit of oily film on the lens, etc. Some are inherent to lens design: such as lenses with overcorrected spherical aberration, etc. Some are for a bad copy of the lens with a decentered or tilted element. Often it will only affect foreground or background bokeh. The IS unit is a lens element and in certain positions could play a role, at least in theory. This will often be very random, only if the IS unit is in a certain (usually maximum correcting) position which will vary shot to shot or even among some of several shots in a burst. Focusing distance also plays a role, with it being more apparent at some distances than others. With ANY zoom lens, however awesome the zoom is, there will be certain focal lengths at which it is more likely appear or be more noticeable than other distances. And, of course, now we have the dual feature of focusing distance and zoom focal length coming into play. So it isn't surprising to me that we see it in some shots and not others. If I had a lens that others all raved about showing Nisen bokeh, I'd be concerned something was wrong. If I sometimes saw it, and others sometimes saw it, I'd be trying to narrow down the conditions in which it occurred so I could avoid them when possible. Although that's a lot of work to do, so knowing myself I'd probably just accept the randomness of it. Then there is this image of a (probably cheap) UV filter: translated https://www.lenstip.com/120.1-article-UV_filters_test_-_supplement_Introduction.html from a well known Polish photography site https://www.optyczne.pl/ It's been disputed what we're seeing here, but whatever it is, it's totally not even: From https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2017/06/the-comprehensive-ranking-of-the-major-uv-filters-on-the-market/ Brandon Dube - Chris Jankowski • 3 years ago In the second link (120...) they claim they've captured interference fringes. They most assuredly have not -- there is no type of interferometer (Fizeau, white light, michelson, lateral shearing, etc) that produces such sharp fringes with that large of a spacing. Their spectral transmission charts are difficult to comprehend, as is their notation for extinction coefficient. IMO. wim

Powerful image! wim

When pigs Hasselblads fly! Oh wait (1; 2; 3 ) Ok when Wallmart starts selling Hasselblads. Oh wait. (1) 😂 wim

Yes Ockham's razor and all that. wim

Not so fast, IS/VR may cause some of it as well. It occurred to me that a particular problem with the filters causing circular marks on the front lens (and I assume on the back of the filter as well) is that these are large diameter filters. Which may be made for wide angle lenses, and usually sold as slim filters. Some of these come (at least used to come) with a caveat: be careful that your front lenses don't protrude too much. wim

Colas is French. And in France they would most certainly have a point when there are people in the frame. Not with RMM6BC though. wim

Marianne Oelund, who is/was one of resident lens gurus of the Dpreview Nikon forum said this about it: It's called doubling and it's normal. Unless the lens is intentionally designed with some under-correction of SA (spherical aberration), high-contrast lines in backgrounds will provoke this kind of detail. It is because the edges of the blur circles are abrupt, instead of diffuse. It is difficult to maintain a pleasing background blur across the focal range of zoom lenses, and this aspect of design usually has a low priority for telephoto zooms. And in a different post she explained the term for it: It's "nisen bokeh." In Japanese, "ni" = two; "sen" = line. Double-line bokeh. No capitalization needed. Except of course it isn't normal if it disappears when the filter is removed. Or the pattern changes direction if the filter is rotated. So the filter is causing it or exaggerating it in certain cases. My theory at the moment is that the filter interferes with the solution the lens designers have come up with to reduce that normal nisen bokeh. Now why? And is it just a certain sort of filter? We assume it's because it's a bad filter. But what if it is because it's a good filter? First of all, putting a piece of glass or a lens in the optical path does alter the focus point slightly. So that could be it. Just a simple focus problem. It could be that UV light has something to do with it. A bit like CA, but now with UV in stead of blue and red. Again basically a focus problem. Both documented problems. However those two still do not explain the directional thing and that it changes with rotation. I should read up on what a UV filter actually does and how it's achieved in the various types. What makes a UV filter cheap and what makes it expensive? So here are some of the resources I have been reading/revisiting in the course of this: Paul van Walree: https://web.archive.org/web/20070823003700/http://www.vanwalree.com/optics/bokeh.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120118221937/http://toothwalker.org/optics/spherical.html Klaus Shuler: http://www.bokehtests.com/styled/index.html He thinks/explains it's caused by IS/VR: http://www.bokehtests.com/page2/index.html So like always when a problem is difficult to understand or explain, there may be different things that cause it. Maybe even at the same time. Dave Etchells: it's aspheric lenses. Roger Cicala: one of many good articles: https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2010/10/the-seven-deadly-aberrations/ And on using or not using protective filters: https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2016/12/front-element-lens-protection-revisited/ And here again on filters with some images that show the problem with cheap filters https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2017/05/yet-another-post-about-my-issues-with-uv-filters/ Which seems to answer my question if it could be that a good filter is causing the problems. At least it shows a bad filter causing problems that may lead to the dreaded nisen bokeh. wim

I wish I could say the same. Quite early on I needed an expensive new front lens for my 1.2-55 Zuiko. (The one that makes the Geiger counter go tick-tick-tick.) Luckily I had a good insurance. Which however became more expensive over the years with small or larger mishaps. So I started using filters on almost all my lenses and had to change those at least every two years for the 24mm and 100mm which were always on my cameras. And the old filters always had scratches and nicks. And not because of using Brillo. Plus I always used rubber lens hoods on most and plastic Leica style ones on the wide angles - I went through a few. While shooting I never used lens caps though. Only after wrapping up. I have since long been converted from the always on - unless to the no filter - unless camp. Besides some of my lenses wouldn't take filters. Like my 17mm which has it's lens cap tied to it with a string. And which I have babied always. But after 10-12 years there are marks on that lens. Maybe it's age (mine): there have certainly been times that I was much less careful and certainly not shy. When lens or camera sometimes came into contact with hard surfaces or teeth even (not mine). 😁 wim