Merry Christmas 2019
Where’s Boris? By Zsuzsanna Dora Majlati
Author: Garf
Digital pictures | Journal | LED | Lighting | Photography | Studio | Technology
Safer modelling lights for Chinese flash head units
An interesting question came up a little while back on one of the photography fora to which I belong “I’d be interested in knowing how you swapped the halogen bulbs for LEDs because I have the same problem and as you say those bulbs are hotter than hell, makes using modelling lights with a grid…
Roamer Ten lit by laser gobo
I recently treated myself to a laser gobo. The patterns it makes remind me of the speaker grille on my old Roamer Ten kit radio. So I thought it might be interesting to combine the two and capture a few snaps.
Laser gobo
Just bought an RGB laser gobo cheap on eBay. So I thought I’d have a little fun with it around the studio and garden.
Digital pictures | General | Journal | Nature | Photography
Rescuing a starling trapped in our bird feeder
This morning I heard a strange commotion outside the studio window, From the corner of my eye, I could see that the transparent bird feeder appeared to be moving on its own. On close inspection I discovered that the incredibly boisterous and greedy young starlings we have round here had smashed the lid off the…
BREAKING: Brexit voters to be to pay extra “Brexit Tax” to pay for leaving the EU
It appeared on the AP this morning and hasn’t hit the mainstream news yet, but the EU has just announced that ongoing Brexit negotiations have cost in excess of €1,500,000,000. Brussels has decided that the fairest way to recuperate this money is to tax those who actually voted for it. The current proposal is that…
Digital pictures | General | Journal | Nature | Photography
Strange cloud
A strange cloud formation in the northern sky round the back of our house.
Digital pictures | Electronics | Journal | Linux | Photography | Technology | Zoneminder
Linux server builds
I had a bit of interest in my Linux media servers recently. In fact I recently completed four Linux media or Zoneminder builds. Here are a few snaps… The machines are based on basic Novatech business PC’s. Nothing special. The media server versions have KDE Neon GNU/Linux. This is a very attractive KDE based desktop…
Journal | Linux | Photography | Technology | Windows
What is a WebP image file, and how do I open one?
Seems there is quite a lot of buzz about a “new” image format called “WebP” that is seeing increasing use on-line recently. Although it is attributed to Google, WebP was not strictly a Google invention. It was originally developed by On2 of New York as part of its VP* series “Truemotion” video codecs. Google acquired…
About GarfNet | FAQ | Journal | Linux | Site Blog
Joomla closedown
As you may have noticed, quite a lot has changed here on Garfnet over the last few weeks. Biggest change of all is the decision to dump Joomla as our main CMS in favour of WordPress. I will go into more detail about the decision in another post. Suffice it to say that WordPress is…
Welcome to the New Look GarfNet
Welcome to Garfnet. This site is currently undergoing a fairly major re-design and upgrade and some parts currently don’t work as well as they should. Sorry about that. I’m working on it as fast as I can.
Merry Christmas 2018
These splendid-looking geese are residents at the Weald and Down Open Air Museum, West Sussex, England.
Temporary Shutdown
Due to a major upgrade to this site, it may be necessary to take GarfNet off line for a while. The business part of Garfnet is already handled by deoss.com, so customers will not be affected. It may take some time to move/update all the legacy material here. Some projects may never reappear. However, we…
Digital pictures | General | Journal | Photography | Studio
Zsuzsi’s Easter display
Zsuzsi’s Easter display through wacky 60’s filters. I just bought a set of these things cheap on eBay and wanted to try them out…
Digital pictures | General | Journal | Photography | Studio
Cheap and cheerful overhead camera mount for mirrorless camera
Cheap and cheerful overhead camera mount for mirrorless camera. I reckon this is actually pretty safe up to about 2kg. Though I normally use a heavy cable tie as an emergency strap.
The Big Russian – my MTO 1000 mm catadioptric lens
This is by far my largest and longest focal-length lens. Rumour has it that the MTO 1000 mm catadioptric lens was “standard issue” to KGB surveillance operatives during the Cold War Era. MTO itself also has an interesting history. Seems it started out by making the huge glass reflectors for Russian anti-aircraft arc-lights. It made…
Drunken bumblebees in our garden…
Drunken bumblebees working the lavender in our garden. Seems Bumblebees have longer tongues than ordinary worker bees and can reach to the bottom of the lavender flowers in order to get to the nectar. Moreover nectar can ferment, when mixed with rainfall and natural yeast. Consequently these incredible little creatures can become quite tipsy, especially…
Digital pictures | Journal | Nature | Photography | Studio | Technology
Nematodes Microscopy
Today I had to spread some nematodes around our recently planted Portuguese laurel trees. But before I put the nematodes in water, I thought it would be fun to look at them under the microscope, and possibly take some photos with my recently acquired 26mm eyepiece to µ4/3 camera adaptor. The camera is my little…
Digital pictures | General | Journal | Photography | Studio
Experimenting with Fujian 35mm f/1.7 CCTV lens
Experimenting with Fujian 35mm f/1.7 CCTV lens. This is a cheap £10.00 lens off eBay. It is designed for CCTV. However with a simple £1.00 “C” to µ4/3 adaptor it fits nicely and works well with my little Lumix DMC GX7. These are some of the results… Actually, I’m a big fan of the…
Portsmouth from Portsdown Hill
Testing out my new old MTO 1000mm lens that I recently found cheap on eBay… You can find out more about the massive MTO 1000mm that I used to take these shots, here.
A few close-ups with my Fujian 35mm f/1.7 CCTV lens
I treated myelf to a new lens the other day, a Fjujian 35mm F/1.7. This thing has no stop clicks. But it’s astonishingly well-made, of all metal/glass construction and behaves very much like a Victorian Petzval lens. It’s a “C” mount and fits nicely (and fills the frame) on my µ4/3 cameras with a simple…
Old photo kit
A couple of odds and sods I rediscovered when I tidied up the studio earlier this month…
Digital pictures | Journal | LED | Lighting | Photography | Studio | Technology
Cheap but effective continuous studio lighting
For continuous lighting, one needs a light source that has good colour balance, uses power efficiently, is reasonably robust and does not present a health or fire risk. I am also a tightwad – interested primarily in “bangs per buck”. Whilst I love new technology, I am not prepared to pay silly money for it….
Digital pictures | FAQ | Journal | Lighting | Linux | Photography | Studio
Setting up a home studio
Editors note: this article is a few years old and there are a few are updates and related posts that some readers may find helpful… 2016 – Converting inexpensive LED flood lights for use in the studio 2017 – Cheap but effective continuous studio lighting 2018 – Cheap and cheerful overhead camera mount for mirrorless…