A few more favourite things
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.
Photography
I have been fascinated by photography ever since I was a child. These days I am seldom more than a few metres from a camera. My photographic interests sprawl from artificial intelligence through to vintage manual-focus lenses. Unsurprisingly, there’s a whole load of Linux in between. :-)
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Debian Digital pictures Electronics Equipment FAQ Journal Linux Photography Studio Photography Technology Zoneminder
Update: Raspberry π4 8GB for Zoneminder part 2
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…
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Debian Digital pictures Electronics Equipment FAQ Journal Linux Photography Studio Photography Technology Zoneminder
Raspberry π4 8GB for Zoneminder
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…
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Remote shooting using “IP Webcam” software.
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…
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A surprisingly straightforward studio flash repair
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…
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Repairing PTZ IP camera
Our Floureon PTZ (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. Problem is the cost of the repair often exceeds the second hand market value of the…
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Digital pictures Electronics Equipment Journal Linux Photography Review Studio Photography Technology
Clevo N150CU running GNU/Linux
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…
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Ulefone 3w ruggedised smartphone
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…
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I’m the operator with my pocket calculator
Like in that old Kraftwerk song, I have a bit of a penchant for small pocket calculators. These are a few of my oldest examples. In fact the Sharp Elsimate dates back to 1973 and belonged to my late father.
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Backups: NAS vs external hard disk
Discussion came up on a forum to which I belong whether it is better to use NAS (network attached storage) or external hard drives for backup. My answer is why not use both? Effectively I have three NAS servers. One is a media server. The others are purely backup – though they can quickly be…
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Home made light modifier
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…
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Roamer Ten in the shed and garden
A few snaps of my old Roamer Ten kit radio in the garden and in the shed, on a bright sunny day. Well, it seemed a relatively enjoyable way to spend a sunny COVID-lockdown day.
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Virtual backdrops and wallpapers
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…
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Easter display
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.
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Not a plane in the sky
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.
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First day of National Lockdown
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…
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Batch processing in GIMP
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…
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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…
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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.
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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.
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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…
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Strange cloud
A strange cloud formation in the northern sky round the back of our house.
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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…
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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…
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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.
