No. it's not that big NASA rocket taking off a day or two early. It's something much smaller. Any guesses?




Taken with K3 + Laowa 25mm macro @ 2.5x, stack of 26, if that helps (which it won't :twisted.

Steve

Woof !!!

Steve

... And a new mini-PC with that spec (except 2666 DDR4 memory), a basic 2GB GEFORCE graphics card and 512GB SSD is just under £600, add more ££ for a storage drive.

Over to you, GrumpyGrandPa ...

Steve

To continue ... Just for fun, I've had a look at what a mini PC would cost with 16GB memory and similar storage to your current machine (from the same company that supplied my NUC). And the answer is between £500 and £600. A similar spec laptop would be significantly more ££.

Steve

Interesting. The specs of your current machine are similar to those of the machine I use (you've got more but slower memory and slightly slower processor) and I don't think my machine is particularly slow. Is anything clogging up the machine while you're trying to process photos? Is DxO PureRaw 2 a particularly slow program? Are your expectatins higher than mine (perhaps I'm easily pleased :wink?

If your heart is set on a new computer, why should it be a laptop since most of the time your current machine is plugged into the mains and you use a separate screen? How about looking at small form-factor or mini PCs or even a full-size desktop? That way, all the money goes into things you need rather than a screen, battery, camera etc. You lose portability, but for those occasions when you need to compute on the move your current laptop will still work. For what it's worth, I had the same issue about 4 years ago, made the jump to a mini PC (an Intel NUC, other types are available) and haven't regretted it.

Not sure about how far your budget will go. Prices have gone up due to world shortage of chips, supply chain disruption due to Covid, war, pestilance etc.

Steve

Really lovely . It's got depth and the composition works. The only niggle for me is the band of rock at the bottom - would it have been possible to get rid of it by taking a few steps forward?

Looking forward to seeing the other ones .

Steve

Attention span always drops off in the hour before midnight, in my experience .
'General Photographic Chat' forum, 'What's your latest acquisition?' thread. The quest for 1/24mm is explained in my post of 12/08/2022 with an update in a post yesterday (23/08/2022).

Steve

Hi Roger.

I was wondering whether you would drop in, particularly as something you said a while ago during the Panny Macro Challenge was the inspiration that started the chain of thought that ended up with me now being able to get 1/24mm. Assuming that by W.I.P you mean 'work in progress', it definitely still is a W.I.P.. But it isn't a secret and it's all revealed in General Photographic Chat > What's your latest acquisition?. You're even acknowledged as the inspiration for the method .

Nice to see your new thread with the latest macros. We won't be overlapping - I'm focusing (groan...) on the kingdoms of plants and fungi, things with legs or wings are most definitely not my territory .

Steve

My latest acquisition is a broken pair of Mrs L's old reading glasses, kindly donated by Mrs L as a contribution to my increasingly sophisticated macro rig (original as per post on 12/08/2022). They are now mounted so that I can easily and accurately read the position of the pointer (shadow) on the protractor scale from a comfortable sitting position. See picture below. A fine example of upcycling, repurposing, creative reuse or whatever we are meant to say nowadays. And also a fine example of not throwing anything away if it might just be useful sometime, even if you can't imagine how and when .

This latest upgrade to the rig has also included replacing the cardboard backing for the protractor disc by a CD. It turns out that CDs are just the right size and a lot stiffer than cardboard.




Steve

+1 to this. I got a set a few years ago when using adapters to do unconventional things with expensive lenses (e.g. reverse mounting a Q-01 on the front of a DA*300mm). Hardly used, but when it was necessary to use one it worked like a dream. And I felt a lot happier using a purpose-made gizmo on expensive lenses than an ad-hoc thingy.

It's a polariser so presumably the front element rotates.

Steve