Design Icon: Linn Sondek LP12 turntable

Hifi buffs will be in no doubt as to the iconic status of the Linn Sondek LP12 turntable.





Taken today using a Pentax K200D with MK2 kit lens. f8 @ 1/2 sec ISO 400.

Andrew

RawTherapee works fine with the PEFs from a K200D. It is definitely NOT garbage.

Andrew

Time for a dumb question .....

I've only tried a teleconverter once. A XR Rikenon 2X with a XR Rikenon 300mm f4.5 APO lens. The results were slightly worse than a shot taken with the lens alone and then cropped. I'm tempted to throw the teleconverter in the skip.

Are 1.4x teleconverters really so much better that there is more detail in a shot using the teleconverter than one taken with the lens alone (and then cropped)?


Andrew

It depends on the number base you use. If you use base 13 rather than decimal numbering then 6 x 9 = 42 is actually correct. (Douglas Adams says that he did not intend this).

Consider the possibility that, even after seven and a half million years of calculation, "Deep Thought" might have got the answer wrong. After all, it was developed by a "pan-dimensional, hyper-intelligent race of beings (whose three dimensional protrusions into our universe are ordinary white mice)" and not by IBM.

According to Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, when Arthur Dent drew random tiles from a bag of scrabble characters, the letters made the question "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?"

The rest, as they say, is history ..........

Kodachrome 25 was the first film I ever used or at least the first that I remember using, with a (model name forgotten) Russian 35mm compact. This would be circa 1973-75.

In no particular order ....

Braveheart
White men can't jump
Schindlers list
Forbidden planet
The Italian job (original)
The Thomas Crown affair (original)
The wrong trousers
Almost any Sandra Bullock film
Almost any Meg Ryan Film
Almost any ..........

It seems a shame to throw it away, but it's simply too big for the space I have available or I'd use it myself.

It has to go this week, so anyone who wants it can have it for free - providing you collect it.

Andrew

The time has come for me to clear out a built-in wardrobe in our spare bedroom. One of the items cluttering it is a perfectly respectable 17ins Fujitsu CRT monitor. I'm sure it was never a top of the range device, but the last time I tried to use it, which must be 4 or 5 years ago, it did work perfectly well.

I have two options - chuck it on the skip or help it find its way into the ownership of someone who might find it useful for photo editing (or for use as a doorstop or whatever). It's quite a big heavy thing, so it doesn't make sense for me to parcel it up and post it anywhere - but - if there is anyone within reasonable hailing distance of Oldham who might find it useful, please get in touch.

Almost any offer (of cash or even a swap) will be accepted.

Andrew

We had a little sunshine this afternoon, so I took a few test shots over the garden fence with the XR Rikenon 50mm f1.7 and compared it with the Rikenon f2 I also have. Wide open, the f2 was obviously sharper. At f2.8 there wasn't a lot of difference. At f4 and onwards, the XR 1.7 was definitely contrastier, presumably because it is multi-coated where the f2 isn't). It also didn't show some slight halo artifacts that afflicted the f2 at the edges of dark objects silhouetted against a bright sky. On balance, I prefer the f1.7.


This is a (slightly cropped) photo over the garden fence. It was taken with a Pentax K200D and XR Rikenon 50mm f1.7 lens with Kood hard dark grey grad at f4 1/160sec ISO 200.



and a couple of 100% crops.







I reckon it's sharp enough for a lens I got for nowt!!


Andrew