Category: Macro

Pythagoras, Roast Chicken and a Baked Potato – 9 November 2019

Posted on by Zogman

It was a cold start to the day and it only gradually got warmer. The best thing that happened today was Roast Chicken and a baked potato. Pythagoras was useful too.

It was one of those days that my dad used to warn me about. “When you’re retired,” he told me, “you don’t get weekends.” It’s true. Weekends are just like any other day … almost. Mondays are different. Mondays are days to wake early. Walk to the window and look at the rain streaming down, then go back to bed for an hour. Today was Saturday and we didn’t have anywhere we wanted to go. So we got up and sat and read the news on tablet or on computer.

I decided I’d best take the new piece of technology out for a test drive. It performed well enough, but not enough to convince me not to return it to JL. It might get packed up tonight, but more likely tomorrow morning. It’s good, but not worth the money that’s being asked for it. It’s touted as being a 1” sensor, but the actual dimensions of the sensor are 13.2mm by 8.8mm. Now, applying Pythagoras to that will give you a diagonal size of 15.86mm. As far as I can remember, 1” = 25.4mm, so the diagonal of the sensor in this camera and others like it is in fact 0.62 of an inch. That’s if and only if the entire sensor is used, because it never is! Do you realise that the ‘camera’ inside a phone is actually smaller than your pinkie nail? Like all things photographic, it’s a con. One of the photos I took with the ‘medium dog’, the Oly E-M1 graces the top of this page and became PoD. It’s a close up of the seed head of cow parsley. Shot against the sun it’s quite pretty IMO.

Lunch could have been in a restaurant or cafe somewhere, but ended up being a piece ’n’ black pudding for Scamp and a piece ’n’ bacon for me. Suitably refreshed, we started making plans for dinner and my suggestion of roast chicken met with Scamp’s approval. We walked down to the shops and got a chicken and other stuff for dinner. The car park was full, absolutely full. Maybe some folk were hoping for a glimpse and perhaps a selfie with Denise Van Outen whoever she is, because she was opening Matalan this morning, but I imagine she would be well gone by the time we arrived.

It’s a pleasant walk down to the shops now. I imagine Tesco is feeling a slight pinch, but nothing too serious. The roast chicken and baked potatoes were lovely. Even better, there’s more for tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, I have no plans, but I my parcel up the Sony camera and give someone else the chance to be disappointed with it. Scamp is doing stuff in the house, I believe.

The Highs and the Lows – 8 November 2019

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Cameras. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.

I’ve been looking for a replacement for my Panasonic Lumix TZ70 which is a wonderful pocket camera. Long, Long zoom, shoots in the malleable RAW format, nice comfortable grip and an ideal form factor. Its big drawbacks are the small sensor (the digital “film”) and its habit of sucking in dust to the lens and ultimately to the sensor. A tiny bit of dust on a DSLR sensor is a bit of a pain, as is a tiny hair. On a sensor that’s smaller than your pinkie nail, that tiny bit of dust is a great black blob. My Teazer has a host of those blobs and now has a hair to keep them company. That’s my reasoning for looking for a replacement. Not ‘another’ camera as JIC will have it, but a replacement. One in, one regretfully out.

I’ve been charting the price fluctuations of a Sony RX100iii for the past few weeks and had a look at the camera in Jessops which was the cheapest of the local shops and Amazon too. Today when I checked, the price had risen by £30 from £449 to £479. The price hike, I presume is so they can ‘reduce’ the price again for Black Friday at the end of the month. It looked like it was out of the question, but I had a second runner in the race and thought I’d have a look at it. Went to JL and they had it in stock it was a Panasonic LX10 (I knew you’d want to know that JIC), but although it had a viewfinder, it didn’t have tilting screen which I now use a lot on my Olys. Bummer! Then I noticed in the reduced section in JL, the Sony I’d been denied by Jessops false price hike. Better than that, it was a kit, complete with a finger grip and a leather case. Best of all, it was about £100 below even the original asking price for the kit in Jessops! I took it. Things were on the up, perhaps. Scamp had got herself ‘another’ pair of jeans in M&S, so she was a happy bunny too.

Came home and went to lunch at Milano Express at Old Inns. Pizzas were a bit of a disappointment, lovely light, well-fired base, but far too heavy on the cheese. Must ask for less cheese next time. Had a relaxing lunch and Scamp was driving on a beautiful sunny day.

By the time we got home there was hardly any time to grab a photo and I did want to unpack this small miracle camera. It was small, it is tiny. Without the finger grip it’s very difficult to hold. Quite slippery. The controls, too are tiny and the menu is a labyrinth of jargon filled abbreviations. You can control the camera using NFC which is great, but the software is a bit clumsy and doesn’t always work. Also, the ‘control’ you have is whether to shoot with a time delay or not. No chance to change aperture or shutter speed. No clue what you’re focusing on. It’s all a bit hit or miss, but mostly miss. Long story short, although the camera is perfect and looks like it’s never been used, I think it may go back on JL’s shelf soon.

Today’s PoD is a slice of pomegranate, but could equally well be a slice through my befuddled brain!

Tomorrow we have no plans.

Rained again last night – 3 November 2019

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And most of today too.

It was one of those days that entice you out with the promise of sunshine and the unwary will venture out and end up soaked. The more circumspect will notice that there is a fine drizzle sparkling through the sunshine and wait for it to clear completely. For most of the day we were in that second group, then we made an excuse, any excuse, went out and got wet. There, that more or less sums up the day.

Spoke to Hazy in the morning and then she phoned back to sort out a couple of iPhone problems for me. It’s great to have an expert on hand for just those niggling problems. After a puzzling hour Scamp and I finally managed to get my calendar and hers to speak to each other. You would think that in this day and age of technical wizardry, something as simple as sharing a calendar would be easy peasy, but it’s not. But then it’s associated with emails and it’s well known that emails and printers are the biggest nuisances in computing, other than trying to install Linux in a Linx computer that its, but that’s another story.

Here is that other story. I have a Linx 12×64, 2 in 1 laptop. It works fairly well, but it’s saddled with the despicable Windows 10 OS. It forever wants to “Get me back on track”. I don’t want to get back on track, I just want it to do what it’s told. That’s when I thought it might be a good idea to install Linux. Linux for those of you who have never heard of it is a free (as in free beer and free speech) operating system that runs on a UNIX base, much like a Mac. It’s a bit geeky, Val uses it, so it’s a lot geeky and the two of us are now competing to get it to run on our 12x64s. He’s almost there and I thought I was today until the screen on Elementary OS closed down every 15 seconds, no matter what I did to try to stop it. The challenge still continues and I’ll have another go tonight. I thought I’d broken the Linx last night when it ended up in no man’s land with no OS at all. No Linux and no Windows. Then I crossed my fingers and used Macrium to restore a backup of Windows and it rose from the dead again. I’m trying to keep this light with very little technospeak for JIC’s benefit, so I won’t explain my big mistake that led to that little problem. Suffice to say I won’t do it again … until the next time it sounds like a good idea.

Eventually Scamp harrumphed and said it was time to go out and get wet. We walked down to the new shops in the almost dry, got our messages and came home in the rain, just solid, straight down, rain. We knew we’d get wet and were dressed for it, so that was fine.

PoD tonight was taken, hand held with the pens sitting on a couple of tissues with another couple behind to hide the mess on the coffee table. I quite liked it.

Today’s blog title came from a Tom Paxton song, by the way “The Things I Notice Now”.

Tomorrow it’s Gems and I’m hoping to go out for a while, rain or shine.

Time to get the big jacket out – 21 October 2019

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I went for a walk today when Gems were in. I was decidedly underdressed.

It’s not like I was wearing tee shirt and shorts, just my usual jeans shirt jersey and my blue windproof rainy coat, but the wind today was biting. I think it’s time to bow to the inevitable and bring out the big Bergy jacket with its heavy lining.

The cold didn’t stop me enjoying the walk and I got today’s PoD down by the Luggie. I don’t know where this spider was going, but it was on a mission. Clambering over the rough gravel path. Look at the size of those teeth, or are they fangs? I don’t know. I didn’t want to get too close.

After I got as far as the road bridge, I had to give up because I was only wearing trainers and while they are waterproof, they are not mud and glaur proof. ‘Glaur’ is an old Scots word for really sticky mud. At least that’s my excuse, but really I was getting chilled by the cold westerly wind and glad to turn my back to it.

Back home I spent a profitable 15 minutes drawing today’s sketch of a bag Scamp bought me. The words “I’m away for the messages” will be familiar to most Scots, but if you are not of a Scottish persuasion, this means “I’m going shopping” Not window shopping or lightweight shopping. No, this is heavy duty serious buying for the week ahead type shopping. Anyway, I like the bag, it’s cotton and feels good. I’ve not actually used it yet. I must do soon. I also liked the sketch. It seemed to flow, not like a few of my Inktober 2019 efforts.

Kept watching the new and old phones while I was making the dinner, but no amount of watching, waiting or wishing would make the phone number on the new phone magically turn into the old one that seems to be stuck firmly to the iPhone. PAC code has been issued and as far as I am told it’s been accepted, but even after we returned from Salsa, never the twain would meet. Will speak to the new provider tomorrow with a bit of luck.

Salsa was the usual stramash that results from Jamie G introducing a new move. The ‘New’ move this week was called DJ and it was really a rehash of something we’d done before. Scamp and I both agree on that. It was a good move, one I think I could dance ‘in the wild’.

Tomorrow we’re off to Falkirk to speak to a man from Yorkshire.

Making the change – 14 October 2019

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Today there will be no lying around. Today I will be active.

That’s what I said anyway. Out fairly early to drop off another sample at the doc’s. Don’t know what they find so fascinating about my pee, but it seems to keep them amused. Back home and today’s work schedule included cleaning the downstairs toilet. It didn’t take long, certainly not nearly as long as the bathroom last week. Probably that’s partly due to the fact that it’s a tiny little space. However I did give it the full “big clean” as one of my cleaners used to call it.

After that it was lunchtime and Scamp suggested I have a couple of slices of my excellent bread with some Wiltshire ham between. What makes the bread extra excellent is that it’s made by Prince Chic (Charles to you, but Chic to his friends). I don’t suppose Chic actually mills the flour himself, but it comes from his estate and it makes very good bread. It was also cheap at Waitrose or I wouldn’t have bought it.

When Gems came in I sat and talked to Margie for a while and showed her my sketches for Inktober. Margie is always very complementary about my work, but she produces some startling paintings herself. Veronica slipped a copy of Wildlife Photographer of the Year onto the table. It seems her son-in-law is a keen wildlife photog. I wouldn’t say that what I take are wildlife photos, more landscapes and macros. I like looking at landscape photos, but find it hard to compose them properly when I’m out and about with a camera. There’s no such problems with macros. With them the big challenges are more technical, like getting the aperture right and trying to get the best use of light. Also there’s the stalking of the tiny wee insects. Great fun, but not really artistic. On first glance at the photos in the book, I’m amazed at the quality and detail. I’ll have a good look before I have to give it back next week.

To continue the ‘active’ theme, I went for a walk along the canal and then on to the railway and that’s where I saw today’s PoD. It’s an old oak tree and I just liked the way the light hit the trunk. It was good to be out in the fresh air under  a blue sky for a change. Took a few more shots, but you’ll have to visit Flickr to see them.   Walking back along the canal, I saw a goosander surface quite close to me with a fish in its beak.  Knew I didn’t have time to grab the camera from my bag and focus, so I just watched it for a while.  It looked quite pleased with it’s early dinner.  Back to M&S for the makings of our own dinner and while I was traipsing around, I got the signal that I’d completed my 10,000 steps. Happy.

Dinner tonight met with a mixed reception. I thought it was great, Scamp was more critical. It was Prawns with Spaghetti and Courgette Spaghetti. Scamp didn’t like the dill that was in it, I didn’t mind. Maybe needs a bit of work.

The topic for today was “A Rowing Boat”. There aren’t many rowing boats lying around waiting to be sketched in the Central Belt of Scotland, so this one came straight out of my head. I quite liked it.

The plan for tomorrow is to get up early and then go to the seaside. Not sure if that will be east or west coast, but the weather looks like it will be fairly dry.

Rain and battered birds – 22 September 2019

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Rain and battered birds.

Maybe it was the heavy rain that caused the pigeon to thump into the kitchen window.

Woke to rain, just drizzle to begin with, but then it got heavier and heavier before it tailed off to drizzle, then began the cycle again. It used this set of options a few times before it finally gave up and turned off the taps around midday.  That was when we heard the thump form the kitchen.  I guessed, right away that it was a bird strike, in fact, a pigeon strike.  They usually make pretty ‘angel patterns’ on the window and often there is a dead bird lying underneath the pattern.  Today there was just a wet mark on the window and a stunned looking pigeon on one of the branches of the tree.  We kept a weather eye on the poor thing and eventually it flew off for further adventures, thankfully unharmed.  Speaking of birds, I just realised yesterday that I hadn’t seen any swallows this week.  Perhaps they’ve flown back down to warmer climes.

<Technospeak>
By then we’d had lunch and I’d been searching for about an hour for Autodesk Mechanical Desktop 2008 to draw my lens hood on the slightly more modern Linx computer. Unfortunately it wasn’t going to happen and I thought I could rely on the old fifteen year old Toshiba laptop running Windows 7 to complete the job. That’s when I found that although the Win 7 laptop said it could see the Epson printer, it was in fact lying. Why oh why do windows computers have such a problem connecting to printers. In the end I downgraded the Autocad file and successfully ported it across to the Linx which couldsee and connect to the printer. Such a faff! Anyway, I finally got the development printed.
</Technospeak>

Welcome back JIC. With the development printed, Scamp said it was time for me to take a walk outside in the rain to get some photos, and more importantly, some fresh air. I agreed. When I came back, the Spatchcock chicken was roasting away nicely in the oven and a glass of sherry was waiting for me.

Watched a boring Singapore GP while we ate our chicken. Looked for Sort-of-cousin Colin in the crown, but didn’t see him! Annoyed by the result, but the person on the top of the podium worked for his money today. I’m not saying who it was, just in case somebody reading this hasn’t seen the results yet.

Spent the rest of the evening flying around Scotland in X-Plane using a new flight plan construction software called Little Navmap which is so much simpler than trying to click on knobs to input waypoints and destinations. Heavens, this is the 21st century, not the 19th. No steampunk junk here thank you very much!

Today’s PoD was a raindrop hanging from a pine needle in St Mo’s. It sort of marked the day.

Tomorrow, Clive arrives, hopefully. Glad he’s not travelling with Thomas Cook who seem to be in serious trouble.

Today I peed in a bucket – 20 September 2019

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It was a bit more high tech than that, but basically that’s what they do for a ‘flow test’.

It’s the tech below the bucket that does all the clever stuff, measuring the rate of flow and producing a graph. Apparently I’d produced a classic bell shaped graph which is perfect. The nurse also gave me my PSA reading from the blood test and explained it all. The reading was 2.2 for those who understand such things. Way down the scale from the 5 I was producing back in February/March. She also showed me my blood sugar reading which was 47, but that was down from the 50 I’d had back in June, so it’s now off the Diabetic range and into the Pre-diabetic area. You’re never ever going to get off the scale. Once they’ve got their hooks into you, they don’t let you go.

So it was a Happy Boy who left Monklands with Scamp this afternoon. A little bit less to worry about. Back home I sorted out my car insurance which was another thing I was reminding myself to do before the end of the month. One thing left to do is pay the Road Tax. That has to be done before the end of the month too. September is always an expensive month. It used to be March, for the same reasons!

Scamp wanted to do some gardening when we got home, so I did the sensible thing and took the bike out for a run in the surprisingly warm sunshine. It’s not often I can go out on the bike with shorts and a cycling top. When I was out I got some more brambles, but I think this lot will be the last. I didn’t see any ripening fruit. It was either ripe or turning to mush. We’ve got a fair bit this year, almost 2kg now. Freezer is full of bags bulging with deep purple berries.

PoD was almost a tie between a macro of a Cranesbill (Geranium maculatum) and an HDR shot of some corn bales. The corn bales won. What surprised me about the HDR shot was the way the camera just took over and did it. So easy! (I’m not going to explain what an HDR shot is because JIC will just complain about technospeak!).

That’s about it for today. The day I peed in a bucket and got a bell shaped graph. I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere. Tomorrow Scamp wants to go out somewhere if it’s ‘nice’. Neither of us have a clue where that place is.

Wandering around the town in a gale – 14 September 2019

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Today we were heading in to Glasgow – driving for a change on a Saturday.

Scamp wanted to get a new tub for cereals, yes it was that sort of day, any excuse to go out of the house! I wanted to see if CassArt still had the fancy Rowney easel Fred was raving about. Finally we were looking for lunch, but not Paesano today.

First we looked for somewhere for lunch. Looked at Amalfi which used to be really good, but there wasn’t anything on the displayed menu that inspired us. We tried O Sole Mio which didn’t awaken any interest either. Finally we settled on Cafe Andaluz and had our usual three tapas each. The only down side was the group of harridans who had booked the table across from us. The noise from them was deafening. When they arrived the waiters started clearing the tables between them and us. I presume it was to put the trough in for them to eat from.

After being fed, we walked to CassArt, but surprise, surprise they were sold out of the fancy Rowney easel. Not to worry, I’d kind of talked myself out of it anyway. Back up Bucky Street thinking I wish I’d lifted my wooly hat, because although it wasn’t raining, there was a cold wind blowing and I’d forgotten that it’s almost midway through September now, so I should be dressing appropriately. Tried Lakeland for the cereal tub, but the one they had was a bit big and also a bit pricey. Back to Cumbersheugh and Scamp got the tub she wanted in Tesco.

Managed an hour in St Mo’s when we got back and that’s where today’s PoD came from. A snail on a swing! It never ceases to amaze me the places these snails get to.

I checked out the fancy Rowney easel on Google and it got slated on Amazon. Allegedly it’s made from wood, but it’s actually made from MDF which is fine for something that’s not meant to move. The big selling point of the easel is that it can move. Lots of criticism of the construction. I think I will leave it where it is, unsold!

It’s cold tonight although the weather station says it’s 15.3ºc. I think the gale force winds are stealing away that heat.

Tomorrow we may go dancing in the Record Factory, but apart from that we have no plans.

A better day – 1 September 2019

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One of those days where you just get things done. Well, some things done.

Went out early to make sure I had a photo for PoD. Yesterday I saw some toadstools over in St Mo’s and today I thought I’d go better prepared and get some wide angle shots of them. Unfortunately, when I got to the spot where I was sure I saw them, there was nothing there. After a bit of searching around I finally found where they’d been, but of the fungi there was nothing left but a bit of the stalk. It looked like something had eaten them. Hope they were mushrooms and not toadstools then!

I did see a brightly coloured Red Admiral butterfly, but it simply refused to settle on any of the Scabious flower heads. I finally gave up after getting one distant, out-of-focus shot of it, just to check when I got back home that it was, indeed, a red admiral. It was. The Peacock that became PoD was a much calmer individual and posed quite happily for me.

Dragonflies were out in force too loads of Common Darters (Sympetrum striolatum). They are fairly small dragonflies. Red/orange coloured and easy to photograph as they like to sit on the metal strips on the boardwalk at St Mo’s, where I’m guessing they can pick up some heat from the metal after it’s been heated by the sun.

I made some beef olives today using beef ham that had been battered flat to help it roll round the mince core more easily. They would have been good if I’d turned the gas off after cooking them for half an hour, unfortunately it wasn’t until I smelled burning that I realised I’d turned the gas DOWN, not OFF as instructed. Oh dear. Well, the carbon is good for the digestion they say. Actually it’s people who burn things a lot who say that!

Dancing at the Record Factory in Byres Road tonight and really quite enjoyed it. We went a bit later, we thought, but it didn’t liven up for nearly an hour after that. I was exhausted, both physically and mentally by the time I called a halt. Scamp would have been happy to dance more! I think she is beginning to get over the Lurgi that’s been hanging over her. Maybe she needs a wee holiday.

Tomorrow I’m going in to Glasgow, hopefully to get my hair cut, because Gems will be here for their first practise of the new session. That’s usually a good time to be elsewhere.

Flowers, Green Beasties and The Proms – 31 August 2019

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Today we were going to Chryston Flower Show to see how my submissions fared. Scamp declared that she was feeling a fair bit better, thank goodness!

It had rained hard during the night and when we woke around 9am, it was still pelting down. That continued until around midday when we got ready for the show and drove out to Muirhead to have lunch in 3 Regazzi I liked the name, 3 Guys. It was standard Italian fare. Scamp had Bruschetta as a starter followed by Chicken in a creamy sauce, with veg and roast potatoes. Mine was Potato and Broccoli soup followed by a spicy Penne Arrabbiata. Both were fine and tasted authentically Italian. We’ll be back.

Walked down to Chryston HS where the flower show was to be. First thought was that there were a lot more folk there than last time. Also the produce was better and more varied than last time. Flowers were the usual incredibly high quality. It’s hard to believe that these people are doing this, basically, for fun. It’s got to be for enjoyment because nobody is going to go to all this trouble for a £1.50 prize for a First, £1 for a Second and £0.50 for a Third. Like my pal Colin says, it’s not about winning, it’s about taking part. My painting got me a First. One landscape photo got a Second and another got a Third. My waistcoat got a Second, so all four were placed. Result!

After we’d spoken to Colin and Evelyn and after Scamp had won a host of prizes at the Tombola we drove home.

The rain that had plagued us for the past two days had tailed off by then and by the time we got home the streets were drying, so I took myself out for a walk in St Mo’s. Not much of interest until I was almost home and that’s when I found a Hawthorn Shield Bug. Sitting on a Dogwood plant minding its own business, it became PoD.

That was about it apart from listening to a quite excellent concert from the BBC Proms with Lisa Fischer and Ledisi presenting an evening honouring Nina Simone. I was amazed by Lisa Fischer’s seamless switch from jazz to Henry Purcell (which Scamp tells me was When I Am Laid In Earth.). Singing with two microphones, she played some clever vocal gymnastics. I wasn’t so impressed with Ledisi, but she too was worth listening to.

Tomorrow looks like a better day than today. We may go dancing.