Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Well that was informative.
No, it was (damn my default tone of cynicism and sarcasm). Not as informative as it could have been, but better than nothing. I have of course been trawling round the internet trying to find guides on how to use the focussing bits in my camera. It's a manual focus SLR and I thought it was time [after owning for quite a few years] that I actually tried remembering how it works.
Why do I not already know? Because I've managed to mislay the instruction book. It didn't help that it wasn't the original instruction book, but instead a sheath of white A4 photocopies. Which is the most universally losable format. I'm even able to find envelopes with writing on the back quicker than anything on white A4. So if I should happen to decide I need to go through my notes on sexual selection in red deer, or post-blanching recovery rates in temperate coral, then I might be able to examine the instructions for my camera, but until then I'll have to rely on my memory and Google.
Unfortunately Google hasn't been all that helpful. It doesn't help I'm not all that sure what I'm looking for. Is the focussing microprism, prism, split-screen, split-image, matte, frenzel, rangefinder or ground glass? Er, possibly several of those. It has two concentric circles in the middle of the screen (yes, I know it's not a screen per se, but it's easier than typing "the image given in the view through the viewfinder). The inner one is split in two horizontally. The outer appears to be crossed by a diagonal grid of pyramids.
I used to know how this worked, but then I convinced myself I didn't, as I kept taking out of focus pictures. The mere fact the eye I predominantly used was steadily losing the ability to focus beyond a metre or two over that period is completely unrelated. So having managed to erroneously discard my learning I now need to make it up again.
Hence the searching. Which provide remarkably fruitless for what I was after. I discovered by experimenting with a chestnut tree, a banana plant, and the printing on a Fyffes box [which could contain the instruction book] how the separate sections of the focusing illustrators work.
The central split image one usually has one light and one darkened section of the image. If one manages to get a linear object crossing the split [e.g. a branch], the line breaks. The rest of the image also appears out of focus. Adjusting the focus ring, and the bulk/main feature of the image comes into focus. [And this must be where I've been going wrong]. However the central image is still half dark and half light, with the optical equivalent of the San Andreas Fault down the middle [hold the camera off the horizontal if the only near linear feature is horizontal]. Moving the focus ring slightly, and slowly the two central images converge, as the tonal differences fade. Go a bit further, and the images begin to diverge and the shaded section is now the opposite side of the split. Go back to the point where the image appears most uniform. Rotate the camera slightly around the axis of the lens, and the image should still be uniform. I'm guessing this is the important bit, and is the point where the central feature is most in focus.
Now point the camera elsewhere, be it at a branch on the other side of the tree, or a building down the road, or the frame of the window one is looking out of. Looking at the central circle, is the halved image still even and uniform, or has the jump popped up again, and one side been blacked out? Unless your camera has a very long depth of field it should have done.
So I think I've got the split image use covered. Next is the odd ring surrounding this. I find this section much harder to use, simply because my eye doesn't like it.
And here I'll give up as I wasn't sure what to say about it (and if I would be getting it right), and so sought out the instruction book. Which means I now know that the microprism ring for use on objects where there are no distinct lines or edges, and is focused when the image isn't shattered. I had to dig the instruction book from a box of university stuff, and so am writing this a long while later, having been reading random bits of paper, including one of my brief attempts at keeping a diary [which I had forgotten]. During it I am incensed by one of my flatmates describing me as "a nasty piece of work wrapped up in a wet blanket". Charming girl. Strangely she's the only one who isn't in communication with the rest of us. I wish I could say that I simply haven't the foggiest idea what it was about, but that wouldn't technically be true.
And so moving on to an equally inaccurate description. The class of 2004 claims to be able to predict which form of middle class you are. I am a Loft-Winger apparently. Maybe not methinks.
Having just seen a brief bit of the American Wife Swap, what is it with Americans and seat belts? One couple didn't have them on, and one couple had the upper strap running under their arms.
Running with the theme of Americans and cars, here's something gleaned from a random BE site: Carhenge. Like Stonehenge only with the obvious difference. File under "Only in America"?
Also via BE:
Discovering that the day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday. Apparently because it's when retailers shift into the black, after the unprofitable period beforehand. Whereas to me Black X-day sounds like it is the day when the stockmarkets go whump, as in Black Monday.
Funky stickers. Equally 1980s. 1, 2, 3, 14 (as someone complained the new U2 runs). Easily amused? Yep.
And back onto the recurring theme. Again, does anyone know quite what is going on in [the] Ukraine? At least it seems to have got past the stage of the pro-EU side taking action which would damage the country's eventual entry into the EU - working on the premise that rejecting the result of an election doesn't really sound a thoroughly democratic thing to do. But that was before the election was shown to be quite so irregular.
Anyhoo,
PS. This was meant to be a guide round various photography guides, but I'll leave that till tomorrow now.
