10
Bee or Fly ?! (lemmy.world)

Like last time, use the comments to indicate what you think!

[-] IMALlama@lemmy.world 5 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

For anyone scratching their heads (my D5300 had a built in GPS!) - most current cameras rely on a companion phone app for GPS coordinates. Some do this better than others. Here's my experience, based on my understanding of how each system works.

  • Fujifilm is best. You can configure their cameras to retain their last GPS location for a set amount of time, so if you're like me and turn your camera on/off a lot during an afternoon none of your photos will be without GPS coordinates - with the possible exception of the first few
  • Nikon/Sony cameras both forget their location any time they get powered off, but re-pair to my phone reliably when powered on. I've spent a lot more time with Sony's app and it gives you a notification anytime the camera connection status changes, so you have a cue to know if you're paired
  • Olympus is the worst I've used. The OM-1 can embed GPS coordinates in the photos it takes as you take them, but for this to work you have to open their app on your phone and toggle a "record location" setting. I might have the exact name of the toggle wrong. Prior models require you to merge the apps location recording with the photos via OM Workspace on a computer. The app also generates notifications for things like events and sales. None of the other brands do that
[-] IMALlama@lemmy.world 1 points 17 hours ago

Three ideas.

First, are you taking photos of static or dynamic subjects? In other words, can you push your shutter speed down to make up for lost light? If yes, it doesn't really matter which sensor format you go with. As an added bonus, M43 stabilization is stupid good so you might even be able to skip the tripod.

Second, there's no beating a fast FF lens on a FF body but those are going to be big and expensive. Here's a quick comparison. The Sony lens is 1.7 pounds and costs $2,000 new vs the Oly's 0.9 pounds and $1,200 price tag. There are super fast third party E-mount options that will save some $$, but no weight (hi Sigma), and slower first and third party options that will save $$ and weight, but will also start to eat into the two stop advantage FF sensors enjoy in low light. For example, Sigma's 50mm f/2 lens, which weighs 0.75 pounds and costs $640, will leave you with around 2/3 stop advantage in low light. It's still an advantage, and it even costs and weighs less than the Oly, but it's not a large advantage in terms of dynamic range.

Finally, with a fast FF lens you're going to be facing a fairly narrow depth of field wide open. That 50mm f/1.2 FF lens will give you a 0.11m depth of field wide open with a subject that's 2m away. If you want the extreme background of your image sharp, everything closer than 35m will be out of focus. Conversely, that 25mm f/1.2 MFT lens will give you a 0.23m depth of field with a subject that's 2m away and with infinity acceptably sharp you'll have a sharp foreground subjects 17.5m and further away from the camera. Stopping down the FF lens will increase its depth of field, but will again eat into the inherent advantage a FF body has over a M43 body.

[-] IMALlama@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago

There aren't many DSLR like fixed lens cameras out on the market today as that segment has basically evaporated.

The remaining players are:

  • Fujifilm x100. There are six total iterations of this camera, the most recent of which was very recently released. It's a bit of a cult classic, which means wait lists. It's an APS-C camera and from a controls perspective is probably what you're looking for
  • Rioch GR. This is another series of cameras that are pretty popular. It's also APS-C based. The mkIII was introduced in 2019
  • Sony RX, in particular the RX1R. Unlike the other two, it uses a full frame sensor. Also unlike the other two, it's by far the longest in the tooth

What are you looking for that the G1X mkIII doesn't offer? Buying a used copy might be the way to go, especially since it sounds like what you're looking for.

As far as currently in production options, in addition to the three above, you could also look at mirrorless. Both their bodies and lenses are more compact than their DSLR counterparts. As far as sensor size goes, Micro Four Thirds (micro four thirds) can offer the most compact glass, followed by APS-C and then FF. That said a compact FF body, with a slower (read: smaller) lens will generally be close in size to a MFT camera with a fast lens. For outdoor and sunny, there will be no image quality tradeoff and when it gets dark the FF camera with a slower lens and a MFT sensor with a faster lens will be more or less on par thanks to the FF sensor's two stop improvement in low light. For example (scroll down if you don't see the two cameras and lenses). This does start to fall apart at longer focal lengths though - there's no substitute for the crop factor advantage beyond say 100mm of FF EQ focal length.

So... What are you looking for?

[-] IMALlama@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

If it was only one shitty ancient system it would be one thing. For the company I work for it's about 10 big interconnected mainframe systems with hundreds of non-mainframe systems cobbled together around them. They've been in place since the 80s, but you can trace their business logic back to the 50s and 60s. They start at cataloging all our parts and get into purchasing components from suppliers, describing the products we assemble, managing the supply chains for our factories, order management from our customers, etc.

Replacing it all will be massive chore, but it's becoming more and more clear that we need to. At the end of the day, capturing and understanding data in them takes so much skill that we have entire departments dedicated to being an interface between the actual users and the mainframe. The business rules might have worked before the products we build contained electronic controls, but everything is starting to implode now that "parts" also includes software. This has resulted in manual workaround on top of manual workaround.

[-] IMALlama@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago

I'm just a rando lurking all / hot and stumbled upon this. You look extremely happy, so props!

[-] IMALlama@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Ditto for mobile. IMO the mobile site wasn't great, but I haven't been on much lately.

[-] IMALlama@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Thanks for the other community link! I was being a bit facetious with this particular image, but I caught a few other probably-a-fly-but-lookes-like-a-bees that I'll post over the next few days.

We have a very pollinator friendly yard, so we have all kinds of flying critters. I won't limit myself to just bees and bee lookalikes though :)

[-] IMALlama@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Canon kept their RF mount locked down, but has been opening it up a tiny bit recently. This is a fairly new lens, so it's probably been optimized for mirrorless. If that is the case, it won't be compatible with DSLR bodies due to flang distances. You can push a DSLR optimized lens out further to mount on a MILC body. You can't move a MILC optimized lens closer to a DSLR body.

[-] IMALlama@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

Haha, tell me why I'm on e-mount without telling me why I'm on e-mount. Canon and Sony seem to be on par for easy AF, but the back catalog of lenses on e-mount is hard to beat.

Hopefully Canon continues to let more third part glass use their mount.

28
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by IMALlama@lemmy.world to c/photography@lemmy.world

Pros:

  • Sharp
  • Nice construction
  • Effective VR/OIS
  • Fast and accurate AF with good tracking. I've used it for a mix of birds, bugs, and youth sports. It's never failed to disappoint
  • It's not white and collapses somewhat small for a longish FF lens. I like to believe the lens didn't stand out that badly when I use it to shoot youth sports. At least I had multiple parents tell me they appreciated the photos. The hood adds a decent amount of visual mass and it's probably not needed 95% of the time
  • Decent pseudo macro, but only at the wide end (1:3.1 aka 0.32x)
  • 500mm is 25% more reach than 400mm and is enough for my needs. I'm on e-mount and this lens combo is faster than Sony's 100-400 with a teleconverter
  • Good price to performance ratio
  • The lens has a focal length lock that uses a clutch like mechanism to lock the lens at any focal length. It seems a bit gimmicky, but I find it useful
  • My copy appears fairly well centered, so yay

Cons:

  • Stiff zoom action and somewhat front heavy when fully zoomed. There's no manual focusing this lens when it's fully zoomed unless you're using a monopod or tripod
  • It's a bit heavy, but is on par for this focal length on a FF lens. If you only need 400mm, get a 400mm lens to save some heft. I use this lens exclusively hand held, but I'm also reasonably fit. I have sat on the ground and used a knee as a makeshift monopod at times though
  • Somewhat slow aperture, but this also on par for the focal length. I only use this lens outdoors, so it's never been an issue. As far as consumer lenses go, there's not much faster out there at this focal length
  • If you need a long lens you're going to need something longer than 500mm. There's obviously more reach here than a 400mm lens, but it's not that much more. This isn't a real con about this lens, just know what focal length you need and go from there
  • No teleconverters on e-mount

Bottom line:

  • If this focal length is your jam, this could be your lens
  • If you don't need the reach, get something lighter and more compact
  • If you don't mind walking around with a massive lens and you're on e-mount, Sony's 200-600 zoom action is really hard to beat

33
Bee or fly?! (lemmy.world)

Vote in the comments! As a bonus, it appears to eat nectar.

[-] IMALlama@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Ditto. I've managed to snag a few photos of birds on/near our feeder from a very close distance. The fine details are pretty amazing.

42
Furry butt (lemmy.world)
103

Especially because they're not shy

40
Happy Camper (lemmy.world)
[-] IMALlama@lemmy.world 38 points 6 days ago

Both. Ethonal is still corrosive and the majority of fuel systems these days are compatible with E15. That said, check your owners manual.

30
Dat proboscis (lemmy.world)

One more pic:

140

I've been interested in photographing bees recently. Rather than buy a macro lens, I spent $32 on a 10mm and 16mm Meike extension tube. Photos are with an A9II + Sigma 35mm f/2, which normally offers a 0.18x magnification. All four are taken as close as the lens will focus. I'm very happy with image quality, especially given that this lens doesn't have a super flat focal plane at its minimum focal distance.

For anyone who tries an extension tube for their first time: you won't be able to focus very far in the distance (beyond about 1 foot in my case). Be ready to get up close and personal.

210

When I planned these beds I spaced them far enough apart to get my lawn tractor in-between them, but getting between them and the fence involved my weed whacker. As anyone with a fence has found out, maintaining the grass at the base of a fence is a pain.

I'm 3/4 of the way done with the edging. It's 10" tall with something like 6" or 7" of it buried. It does a good job of keeping grass out of our other beds, so I'm sure it will do a good job here. The downside is the most effective way of installing it is to trench first, put the edging in, and then refill the trench. If you try to use one of those big pizza peel looking things to make a narrow slide the will usually get wavy due to variation in trench depth.

I mowed to basically ground height between the beds, weed whacked around the beds, and put in a layer of that thick paper builders will use to protect flooring below the mulch. Some areas for cardboard instead, but we just didn't have enough cardboard to cover it all. Hopefully it will be enough to kill the grass and hopefully that results in less grass appearing in my raised beds.

39
We too have lilies (lemmy.world)

Topped by deer and it looks like Lily beetles are a thing here now :(

79

I got tired of remaking my sisal trellice every season, and didn't like using nylon netting, so I went with something more long term. The downside? Vine removal in the fall will likely be a slog.

350

No banana for scale, but let's say that it's not too big and not too small. The dimensions are 295mm tall, 270mm wide, and 240mm deep. If I had to do it again, I would be tempted to go a bit wider and touch less deep. It's probably better to be large in one of these dimensions as opposed to both of them.

Here's the top. It has a jack for charging, a connector to program the DSP, a switch to turn it on and off, and a battery gauge.

The speaker also has a built in handle that's way chunkier than it appears, but is still particle.

The big BOM pieces are a Dayton Audio LBB-5Sv2 for the BMS (battery management system), a Dayton Audio KABD-250 2 x 50W for DPS, amplification, and Bluetooth, a Peerless by Tymphany BC25SC08 tweeter, and an Italian-but-made-in-India woofer (a Coral PRF 165).

The print itself is three pieces: the bottom bit (black), the middle bit (white, blue, and white again thanks to not having enough white left to do it all in white), and the black top. Here's a CAD view that more clearly shows the three pieces:

the three pieces are held together with heat-sets and m3 bolts. There's also a tong and groove like joint to help the enclosure leak less air. I haven't noticed any evidence of air leaks while listening.

The amplifier and battery board mount to the bottom like so:

The middle was printed with some supports for the driver overhangs, but the ports and everything else were designed to print in place without supports.

This is certainly not meant to be audiophile build, but it's surprisingly decent. This isn't my first blue-tooth speaker, or even my first printed loudspeaker enclosure, but it is the first that was somewhat intentionally designed to have OK bass response while also being reasonably compact.

It measures fairly well. Frequency response, along with harmonic distortion, is pretty good. There's zero windowing or smoothing on this plot. I suspect the distortion spikes at 1 kHz, 2 kHz, etc are induced by the Bluetooth stack the board is running since they've shown up in multiple different enclosures and with multiple different drivers.

There's no nasty ringing, caused by either the drivers or the enclosure, so life is pretty good:

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IMALlama

joined 11 months ago