Sony A7 IV Focus Bracketing Test – 16NOV2024

photog Camera Reviews, Photo Study, Photography, Photography Reviews , , ,

Welcome to the further adventures of me playing around with the newly added focus bracketing function on my Sony A7IV camera.  Although I was using the Sony 90mm macro lens this isn’t a macro bracket.  I set up a few small statues in a location that caught the late afternoon light and ran a hundred shots with a medium setting on the focus change.  I’ve attached the first file (1) and the last file (100) followed by the merged product.

(1)

 

(100)

 

merged product

 

Now this isn’t all that an exciting test.  Afterwards I though I probably should have included a shot at a very small aperture like F8 or F16 as a comparison of what can be done the old fashioned way without the software magic.  But I didn’t think of that before.

Anyway, just another test as I play around with my fun new toy.

16NOV2024 – Quote of the Day

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Vitai Lampada

There’s a breathless hush in the Close to-night —

Ten to make and the match to win —

A bumping pitch and a blinding light,

An hour to play and the last man in.

And it’s not for the sake of a ribboned coat,

Or the selfish hope of a season’s fame,

But his Captain’s hand on his shoulder smote —

‘Play up! play up! and play the game!’

 

The sand of the desert is sodden red, —

Red with the wreck of a square that broke; —

The Gatling’s jammed and the Colonel dead,

And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.

The river of death has brimmed his banks,

And England’s far, and Honour a name,

But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks:

‘Play up! play up! and play the game!’

 

This is the word that year by year,

While in her place the School is set,

Every one of her sons must hear,

And none that hears it dare forget.

This they all with a joyful mind

Bear through life like a torch in flame,

And falling fling to the host behind —

‘Play up! play up! and play the game!’

Henry Newbolt

Patriot Games

photog Current Events, Trump , , ,

Lately, I find reality beginning to resemble 1980’s action movie plots.  We have CIA and FBI undercover operations freely mixing into our politics.  Whether it’s Russia-gate or Hunter’s laptop or any of the color revolution activities inside and outside of the United States, it just seems like there’s no longer any brakes on what intelligence agencies will do if they decide it’s in their interest.

It’s as if they’ve been reading too many Tom Clancy novels or something.  And now with Donald Trump taking the initiative by selecting nominees for Attorney General and other cabinet officers who could curtail these activities it almost seems like we’re approaching some kind of showdown between the elected government and the Deep State.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see where this could go.  Now the thing is, the intelligence agencies have a long-standing relationship with many of the senators who run the place.  With Senator Thune selected for Senate Majority Leader I wouldn’t be surprised if they are given marching orders to veto Trump’s nominees like Matt Gaetz.  What might happen might be that the Senate could veto Gaetz but Trump might make him an interim appointee.  I’m guessing that a year in office might be plenty enough to fire and prosecute plenty of Trump’s enemies.  And after the year I’m sure Trump will find plenty of other work for Gaetz.  And likewise for Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense.  You can fire a lot of generals and rescind a lot of DEI and LGBTQ policies in a year.

But it’s easy to see that the GOP establishment is still alive and well in the Senate.  Donald Trump has his work cut out for him and he’ll have to use every bit of the powers that the presidency possesses to bust up the Deep State.  I suspect he may have to declare a national emergency just to shut the border and deport the millions of illegal aliens.  And I don’t think the enemies of this country, foreign (the aliens) or domestic (governors like Gavin Newsom) will just roll over and play dead.  Trump is going to have to play hardball with them.  I don’t doubt that it will lead to violence.  And that’s one of the biggest reasons why he has to purge the military and the Justice Department of his enemies.  Otherwise, they will fight him tooth and nail every step of the way.

I think it will be fascinating to see who wins.  I’m sure the FBI and the CIA will “discover” another Russia-gate to investigate.  And various senators who work for Raytheon and the other defense contractors will accuse Trump of being soft on Russia for not wanting to keep the Ukraine war going for another ten years.  I hope that Donald Trump has learned his lesson and will fire all of the FBI, NSA, CIA and other intelligence agency enemies he has as soon as he gets into office.  And he should similarly fire as many woke generals as he can, as soon as he can.  I think his presidency depends on it.  And with no hint of exaggeration, his very life probably does too.

2024 Election Follies – The Recap

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, photog's Corner, Trump , , ,

Today was the first weekly zoom call I had with my work buddies since the election.  It goes without saying that high spirits and hilarity were the order of the day.  We compared the high we were getting from watching the compilation videos of despairing Kamala voters to the 2016 Hillary scream fests.  I think we agreed that the 2016 psychos were probably funnier but since we are more grateful in 2024 it was basically a wash.

We talked about some of the Trump cabinet picks and agreed that the panic and despair we had heard about inside the Deep State was a very good sign.  There was much schadenfreude expressed.

We compared notes on how things were going in our lives outside of politics and everyone seems excited about Thanksgiving this year.  Then we traded stories on “the Company” and how awful and woke it had become and how the stock price had dipped.  But even that hadn’t dampened our enthusiasm for the future.

I regaled them with stories about the elections here in Dunwich and they told me about the follies in their communities.  All very familiar.  One of the guys is an Indian American who used to be a Democrat.  So, we gave him a bunch of grief about how his relatives will now consider him a traitor for voting for Trump.  He told us the rationale that he uses to justify himself to his parents and other relatives and we hooted at how lame it all sounded.  We told him that as our official token POC and Indian American he must take all the blame for Trump winning and he must apologize to Kamala face to face.  He proceeded to say some very rude things in his best subcontinent English and that was that.

I had hoped this week would be a calm after the storm.  But commitments piled up and my first real breather doesn’t come until Thursday afternoon (I hope).  But from that point it should be clear sailing.  The last two years have been a kind of great experiment getting involved in elections and politics.  I’ve learned how it all works and now I know what is likely and what is unlikely with respect to election fraud.  What seems clearest is that mailing out absentee ballots and allowing “voters” to access ballot drop boxes is the weak link in election integrity.

There are well-documented cases of individuals stuffing drop boxes with dozens and even hundreds of ballots.  This is completely illegal and also extremely hard to prevent.  Other irregularities weren’t part of my experience.  I suppose if the ballot tabulators in some jurisdictions do not use paper ballots and are connected directly to the internet that any kind of skullduggery is possible.  I have to assume that any reasonably intelligent person would know that.  What happens going forward will depend completely on the state government in power.  Places like California and New England will allow whatever irregularities they deem helpful to the Democrats.  Hopefully, the red states will protect themselves from voter fraud and election fraud.  But many of the cities are run by Democrats and the state government will have to provide oversight to protect against it.  So, my great experiment has been somewhat successful.  Now how do I separate myself from this quite onerous responsibility?  Well, we’ll see.  The First Selectman doesn’t like to be disappointed.  To be continued.