Just occasionally here in Britain we design and produce a product that is so simple, versatile and completely brilliant one wonders why no one thought of it before. The humble Benbo Trekker camera tripod is one such design. Whilst those expensive black plastic (aka “carbon fibre”) things everyone seems to be talking about look pretty…
I really like my Ulefone 3w ruggedised smartphone. But it is a bit of a “paving slab” to hold in one’s hand. Which makes it a tad awkward to use as a camera. So I looked around for a solution. i.e a well-made and solidly-built holder for my ruggedised smartphone, that would not break the…
“Is a smartphone a substitute for a proper camera?” was an interesting question, posed on a photographic forum to which I belong . It certainly got me thinking… Firstly, I think there is a certain element of “using the right tool for the job” here. An analogy if I may: one can (un)do most screws…
Well, the weather has perked up a bit, But we can’t actually go out and do very much because of coronavirus lockdown. So I thought Id take a few springtime snaps around the old homestead.
Here are a few snaps taken as we installed Weather Station Aercus Weathersleuth WH24 External Sensor Cluster. It really needed to be up as high as possible, yet reasonably easy to maintain. It also needed to be clear of obstructions. Well, as clear as our postage-stamp sized backyard will allow. The only viable place was…
Raspberry π4 for ZoneMinder Part 1 – Raspberry π4 8GB for Zoneminder Part 2 – Update: Raspberry π4 8GB for Zoneminder Part 3 – Another update: Raspberry π4 for Zoneminder (you are here) My π4 Zoneminder has been running for just over two months. Overall I’m pretty happy with it. The main issue I had…
There are many ways to break an SD slot, but a surprisingly common one is to jam a tiny piece of plastic it it that has snapped off from a damaged SD card. The tiny plastic dividers between an CD card’s contacts can snap off. I’ve had quite several cards do that over the years….
I’m a fairly keen amateur photographer. Over the years, I have collected quite an assortment of vintage lenses, filters and other bits and bobs. I have also encountered quite a few sticky filters. However, I can honestly say that I have never destroyed a filter by attempting to remove it. Having the correct tool helps…
I needed a few pictures for another article I’m writing. While I had everything set up, I thought I’d take a few additional snaps of various bits-and-bobs I have kicking around the studio.
Following on from my last article, this is Raspberry π4 8GB for Zoneminder part 2. Now I have had time to set it up and test it for a while. Firstly, I decided to abandon the ARM64 version of Ubuntu on π because it seems slow and clunky. Basically it seems the current beta ARM64…
This is a overview of my adventures experimenting with a tiny Raspberry π4 8GB for Zoneminder GNU/Linux-based security system. Raspberry π4 for ZoneMinder Part 1 – Raspberry π4 8GB for Zoneminder (you are here) Part 2 – Update: Raspberry π4 8GB for Zoneminder Part 3 – Another update: Raspberry π4 for Zoneminder Background I have…
Folks considering remote shooting via smartphone may wish to experiment with Pavel Khlebovich’s “IP Webcam”. Basically it’s an amazingly clever and full-featured app that allows you to control the camera(s) on your smartphone with a remote computer, using standard internet protocols. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pas.webcam I initially got into it because it plays nicely with Zoneminder. Thus any…
Back in 2015 I bought 3 pairs of studio flash heads (one pair 400 joule, one pair 360 joule and one pair 200 joule). They were supplied as bargain bundles, complete with stands, brollies etc. via sellers on eBay. They were quite a bargain. Each flash head worked out at approximately £50 per unit, They…
Our Floureon pan tilt and zoom external IP camera has shipped a bit of water. It lives on the south west corner of the building and gets battered by the strong south westerly prevailing winds we have here. So I took it off the wall this morning and dismantled it on my work bench. It…
Seems it’s time to buy another laptop. My trusty old Thinkpad has seen better days. Worse, a company with somewhat ironic name of “PCSpecialist” made a total pig’s breakfast of repairing my new Clevo N141ZU I had purchased from it earlier. “PCSpecialist” also lost my hard disk, then denied having it. And what “PCSpecialist” laughingly…
I recently purchased an unlocked Chinese Ulefone Armor 3W ruggedised smartphone – c/w Mediatek chipset, 8-core 64-bit CPU, dual unlocked SIM slots, 256GiB TF slot and 10300mAH battery. I have quite a soft-spot for cheap generic Chinese phones. Of course, one has to choose the product quite carefully. You need to ensure your preferred device…
OK, so we are still in coronavirus lockdown here in the UK and I have spent the afternoon playing! 🙂 I saw the basic idea on a web forum on a photography site, and decided to look around my garage and see if there was any thing suitable to produce something similar. I also took…
Freebies to beat those lockdown blues This is a collection of virtual backdrops and wallpapers that you may download, manipulate and enjoy, for free. These images were created by capturing and saving a large number snap-shots of an open source music visualisation application for GNU/Linux called ProjectM – not to be confused with a 2008…
A little thing like Covid was not going to prevent my Zsuzsi creating one of her Easter displays. We photographed the 2020 edition in the garden.
It’s a beautiful spring day here in south east Hampshire. And it’s dead quiet thanks to the Coronavirus lockdown. And the northern sky that normally liberally criss-crossed with vapour trails is a perfect clear sky blue, with no aircraft within 50 km or more.
So here we are, first day of national lockdown here in the UK. How are things in your part of the world? Round here (South East Hampshire) things seem eerily quiet this morning. Our street is a sleepy little cul-de-sac and pretty quiet even at busy times. But we are 300 metres from the main…
In my early days of using GNU/Linux full time, we had an application called Gwenview. It was, and still is an excellent thumbnail viewer. But back then it also used to have an excellent set of plugins called KIPI. Sadly the really useful ones such as resizing and changing format completely disappeared when KDE 5…
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…
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.
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.
