While the Clownstrike fiasco rumbles-on in the West, and people in our particular part of the planet can’t even purchase a train ticket, it seems both Russia and China are almost completely unaffected. According to the Guardian, Clownstrike hasn’t been able to flog its ill-fated anti-fungus product in Russia since the Ukraine war kicked off….
Today our planet is suffering what appears to be Microsoft’s biggest ever outage. Seems the culprit is a piece of buggy “security” software provided by a company called Crowdstrike. Or is that Clownstrike? It sends Microsoft Windows computers into a never-ending boot loop, from which users cannot escape, without going into “safe mode” and removing…
I’m a clumsy clot and I’m always knocking my phone off my desk. OK it’s ruggedised and the floor is carpeted. Nevertheless, ruggedisation has its limits. Also my phone is a heavy old beast, weighing some 360 grams. That’s around 3/4 lb in “old money“. Which means that those flimsy plastic phone holders you see…
Tories have just been well and truly trounced in the UK. Labour has officially won the 2024 UK General Election. Results still coming in but it’s set to be an absolute landslide… https://www.theguardian.Com/politics/live/2024/jul/04/general-election-2024-uk-live-labour-tories-starmer-sunak-results-exit-poll Not so much that Labour won, than the Tories lost. Granted, this time it was more about people voting out the Tories,…
Happy July 4 to all our American friends, celebrating the fact their ancestors had the good sense to rid themselves of our awful Royal Family. Here in the UK, it’s General Election time again. For some strange reason, it was called for 2024-07-04. Hopefully the results of this election should be cause for celebration here…
By which I mean testing my Tamron 500mm Catadioptric lens. It was a nice warm reasonably clear day today, peaking 24°C. So about an hour before sunset I took my Tamron, fitted on the front of my µ4/3 Lumix DMC-GX7 up to my favourite vantage point on Portsdown Hill, Hampshire. This is a wonderful place…
I was pleased to note that our collared doves have returned after several year’s absence. Of course I have no way of knowing if they are the same collared doves. But whoever they are, I’m rather fond of them and delighted to see them back in the garden again.
Quite a lot of noise in the photography press regarding Ricoh Pentax’s new point and shoot film camera, the Pentax 17. And even more noise regarding its somewhat hefty price ticket: ÂŁ550. Choices However for me it would have to be a choice between one of these (below) Pentax ME SUper, or more likely a…
About a decade ago, I decided to go “mirrorless” – basically abandoning my heavy old Pemtax DSLR and going for a system camera that is smaller and lighter. At the time I considered the new Fuji mirrorless offerings and micro four thirds. Problem was that at t the time Fuji raw files would not work…
I’ve been flirting with affordable LED in the studio for over a decade. And on each experiment, I’ve had change out of fifty quid. My latest sortie involved a pair of these things They have simple removable diffuser, reducing the need for a soft-box, they’re fairly robust and in addition to being dimmable they also…
If like me, you are tired of having your screen cluttered full of stupid ads, c/w the general enshittification of the Internet by commercial interests, then you may wish to try /etc/hosts file “hostile server blocking”. It’s free and no additional software is needed. This is because your /etc/hosts file part of your computer’s TCP/IP…
I suffered my first hard disk failure way back in 1987. Fortunately I recovered 99% of my data. However, successful recovery required quite a lengthy struggle and a somewhat inelegant bodge. Since then, I’ve held something of a fascination, some might even say an obsession with backup systems. Over the years, I have tried all…
A thread on a photograhic forum to which I belong stated methinking about gobos. I liked the idea of a proper gobo projector, but I didn’t like the cost. So I decided to have a look around to see if there were practical affordable alternatives. To cut a long story short, I stumbled upon this…
Today I decided to make my own affordable detachable camera and equipment lanyard straps. I used some cheap generic “Peak Design compatible” buckles, bought direct from China via Ali Express, together with some generic anchors from the same source. I also used some 25mm nylon webbing I’ve had kicking round for ages. Granted, perhaps bright…
Problem is that memory cards can and do fail – even the expensive ones. And of course the world is littered with fakes. Being a bit of an old skinflint, almost all my memory cards have come from Amazon or similar. But I always add one extra precautionary step to the process between purchase and…
Driving through the West Sussex countryside on my way back Chichester, I spotted this tiny stone Chapel, literally right in the middle of nowhere. The board outside read St Mary’s Church Sennicotts. But the odd thing is there is no other building near. Nearest building I could see was about 400 metres away. The church’s…
A couple of months back, a question was raised with regard to how to prevent cable connectors falling out of cameras during tethered shoots. Well my tethered shoots are almost always tethered wirelessly these days. However I do sometimes need to attach a power lead. As my wife reminded me, when we’ve done shoots with…
The subject of monopods was raised recently in a photographic forum to which I belong. As it happens, I was already flirting with the idea of using a walking stick as a monopod, to avoid the need to carry two sticks. I’m a lazy so-and-so at the best of times. I also have a habit…
Photographer pal changed the batteries in his dead YN565EX II speedlight flash gun. Unfortunately when he tried to witch it on, it didn’t work. He tried several sets of batteries. No luck. For those not familiar with the device, the Yongnuo YN565EX II is a relatively affordable battery-powered Chinese flash speedlight for both professional and…
Several people have contacted me privately and asked for information regarding how I actually mounted my 120-year-old Bausch & Lomb + Beck lens on my µ4/3 camera. I hope in this article to shed a little light on how one can make such an old lens and seemingly-incompatible lens actually stay on a modern mirrorless…
Regular readers may know that my 2023 Christmas project was to make this 120 year old Bausch & Lomb + Beck lens fit on my µ4/3 cameras and actually capture some pictures with it. Unfortunately, at the time, the weather was too wet to take the thing outdoors. Fortunately by early January the weather became…
Over Christmas I set myself a little task of trying to make a 120-year- old Bausch & Lomb + Beck lens fit on a fairly modern camera. The lens was given to me in the late 1980’s by one of my very first models. It was a nice thought but to be honest, I came…
Merry Christmas 2023 from GarfNet, in a cold, damp, wet and windy Old Blighty. Like last year, its all a tad dull and gloomy here and many folks here are not exactly brimming with festive cheer, this year. Nevertheless, merry Christmas anyway… 🙂 About the picture The photo is entitled “The easily LED geese of…
I always rather fancied a decent 500mm catadioptric lens. I bought a cheap Korean one off eBay a few years back and frankly it was not very good. But the old Tamron 500mm mirror lens has quite a good reputation. And as luck would have it, one turned up cheap on eBay a few weeks…
Following the fiasco at the end of last week, when the BBC killed all its HLS internet radio streams, I am pleased to report that we’ve found a bunch of new ones, that seem to work. Moreover, apart from a few irritating caveats, they seem to work well. So I bundled up the URLs and…
