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.
Studio
These are some of the things I get up to in my little 25m² home studio. I’ve long accepted we live in an imperfect world. Nothing can ever be perfect. One can only ever optimise, learn, and optimise again. Consequently I consider most of my projects essentially a bunch of engineering compromises. This project has certainly had it’s fair share of those!
Moreover, if I’m spending my own money on a project, then in addition to bangs per buck I’m also looking for sustainability, particularly in terms of ease of repair and maintenance. This is common sense really, since I’m the poor bugger who’ll have to do the repairs! Most importantly I try to engineer my projects so that either as a whole or as component parts they can be redeployed or repurposed for other things, if the original intent does not work-out as planned. This worked out nicely for me during lockdown when I was able to repurpose the studio for building GNU/Linux media servers, amongst many other things.
Anyway, I hope that some of the articles in this section will be of use to other people, particularly those who are undertaking studio projects of their own.
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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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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…
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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.
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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 23.3mm eyepiece to µ4/3 camera adaptor. The camera is my little…
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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…
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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…
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Old photo kit
A couple of odds and sods I rediscovered when I tidied up the studio earlier this month…
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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….
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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…
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Digital pictures | Journal | LED | Lighting | Photography | Studio | Technology
Converting inexpensive LED flood lights for use in the studio.
This is how I converted three left-over cheapie (£60 for a box of ten, delivered) 20 watt daylight LED flood lights for use in the studio. The basic tools you need:- Vernier or digital caliper, M10 ISO metric taps. Suitable spanner (17mm AF). Bench vice. Electrician’s screwdriver and wire strippers, to make the electrical connections….
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Digital pictures | Electronics | Journal | LED | Lighting | Nature | Photography | Studio | Technology
Romanesco – alien food
I have always been rather fascinated by the fractal-like properties of the romanesco. It really does look like it is not of this planet. SO I thought it would be fun to team up a romanesco, some cheap RGB LED lighting and a couple of broken silver coloured mannequins. Just in case anyone is wondering:…
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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…
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Digital pictures | Journal | LED | Lighting | Photography | Studio
Studio lit by LED
I rather like LED lighting. I never cease to be amazed what one can do with it – and do very cheaply. So I decided to have a bit of fun in the studio, with some of the latest budget RGB LED and a couple of Cokin starburst filters.
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Digital pictures | Electronics | Journal | LED | Lighting | Photography | Studio | Technology
My studio at night
More LED experiments – this time using some small daylight LED and a 12 volt DC power supply to light the Dexion racking.
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Digital pictures | General | Journal | Photography | Retrospective | Studio | Travelogue
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…
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Digital pictures | General | Journal | LED | Lighting | Photography | Studio
Christmas tree lit by LED
Our little Christmas tree looks quite pretty this year. And we decorated it with a very long string of LED lights.
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Digital pictures | Electronics | General | Journal | Photography | Radio | Studio | Vintage Radio Equipment
Radios
I had a lovely model called Onna come down from London today for a retro technology photo shoot. While she was here, she posed with some of my favourite radios, including my Icom IC-R20 and my AOR AR 8200 handheld communications receivers. Which I continued to photograph long after she had gone home. Here are…
