Merry Christmas 2019
Where’s Boris? By Zsuzsanna Dora Majlati
General
These are a few general observations that might be of interest to some people.
-
-
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…
-
Strange cloud
A strange cloud formation in the northern sky round the back of our house.
-
Merry Christmas 2018
These splendid-looking geese are residents at the Weald and Down Open Air Museum, West Sussex, England.
-
St Huberts Church and Rowlands Castle
Today we took a drive to take some snaps of the tiny St Huberts Church in the Idsworth Valley, Hampshire, We then went on to Rowlands Castle.
-
Lymington and Langley
Took a trip to Lymington, Hampshire, then to Langley, near Blackfield and took a few snaps of a large stag beetle.
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Setting up a home studio
Editors note: this article is a few years old and there 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 camera 2019 –…
-
Silver mannequins
I was given a pair of broken but usable silver-painted mannequins by a photographer pal. Here are a few snaps of them as they arrived in their new home and saw their first tours of duty in my studio…
-
Merry Christmas 2016
Geese lament over Brexit and Trump. Painted by Zusannah Dora Majlati, 2016.
-
My cheap new Amazon Basics photographic rucksack
A couple of days ago, I purchased an “amazon basics” camera+laptop rucksack, for the princely sum of £ £35.49. delivered. Well it just arrived. So time to check it out, and move in. I have to say I’m actually quite impressed. This model also has a built-in laptop carrier too that comfortably holds a 40…
-
Aliens ate my shed
Slightly off-the-wall experiment with a pair of broken mannequins and some cheap but effective RGB LED lighting.
-
Repairing an elderly Tamron 80-210mm lens (103A)
I’ve had this old but very chunky Tamron 80-210mm Adaptall 2 telephoto zoom lens since the mid 1980s. Only I noticed that the overall image quality had become rather poor. I wanted to find out why. When I shone a small torch through it, I noticed what appeared to be a haze. Despite several cleans…
-
Macro with a 58mm 44-m4 Helios lens and a 10 mm macro ring
Macro shots using an elderly Soviet era 58mm 44-m4 Helios lens and a 10 mm macro ring. Much to my surprise, it seems to work remarkably well, certainly on my little µ4/3 camera.
-
Merry Christmas 2015
“Oh no it isn’t!” A little goosy Yuletide humour. Mr Goose objects to his fellow geese being eaten for Christmas.
-
Checking out my new lens tilt mechanism
I treated myself to a lens tilt mechanism and a vintage Helios 4m-44 58mm f/2 lens. So I figured I needed to go out and test them. These were taken from Portsdown Hill, facing south, over Portchester and Cosham. Being able to tilt the lens means one can shift the focus onto a particular part…
-
Merry Christmas 2014
The Goose that Never Voted for Christmas Lovingly drawn by Zsuzsanna Dora Majlati Well, it’s been a funny old year. Lots of hard work going on behind the scenes, but not a great deal to show publicly for all the effort. The new Joomla site is still in progress – struggling to use our existing…
-
2013 Retrospective
2013 was quite an interesting year for me, not least because we finally moved way from my tiny terraced cottage overlooking Southampton common, to a much larger place, where there is enough room for a reasonably usable home studio. Only moved 35km, but it felt like moving to another planet. Of course, it takes a…
-
Merry Christmas 2013
Christmas card 2013. Ebenezer Goose at St Faith’s, Havant. In 935AD, Havant was known as “Hamafunta” – the spring of Hama – referring to the water spring to the south-west of St Faith’s Churchyard. The settlement was located at the crossing point of the track from the Downs to the coast and another track running…
-
Merry Christmas 2012
Mr Goose’s (not so) secret Yuletide hideaway.
-
Day trip to Hayling Island
I took a day trip to Hayling Island today, armed with a little Fuju HS20 EXR bridge camera.
