All posts filed under: Lab Report

The ongoing misadventures of Pu & Bear

Pentax 67 lenses on Pentax 645D Body (Part 2)

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Please check out the first part of this post here. I just tried out attaching my 105mm Pentax 67 lens to the 645D body. Adapter works well. Lovely mechanical clicks as everything locks into place. When you turn on the camera the readouts on the viewfinder, rear monitor and top panel all show the aperture reading as blank. The camera is however still metering so when I set the lens aperture to 2.4, the shutter speed automatically adjusted to give the correct exposure (or it’s best estimate of the correct exposure). Found Bear, and took another portrait shot.  Of course not only do you have to manually set the aperture with the aperture ring, you also need to focus as the 67 lenses are all manual focus. Pleased with how this came out. Not having the aperture reading in the viewfinder isn’t a problem, in fact this is the same as when using the Pentax 67II normally. The 67 lenses give a nice bokeh and at 2.4 a very shallow depth of field. I will …

First images with the 645D

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The story so far… Charged battery. Turned on camera. Set language (to English), set date, set time. Inserted  32GB SanDisk Extreme SDHC card into each of the two memory card slots. Attached lens. Placed piece of bread behind ear. Pointed camera at Bear (the dog). Took a few photos of Bear until she started barking and lunging at ear. Connected camera to computer with USB cable (Must buy card reader). Copied a couple of images to desktop. Opened in Photoshop. Added file info. Added TRAVEL67 watermark. Resized for blog and added another TRAVEL67 watermark. Uploaded small images to blog and full size images to Flickr. So there you go. The first couple of images from the 645D. I haven’t changed any settings.  This was auto exposure, auto white balance, sRGB, and saving as a Jpeg to both memory cards. Need a cup of tea, and then will head out to get a few non-dog photos. Hopefully the weather will cooperate.

Dealing with a petulant Snow Leopard

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A follow up to Apple Mac by Kafka. The Good Applications bought on iTunes could be downloaded again. This was nice as I had just paid about 20 bucks for the Japanese Ap. that works as a great English/Japanese dictionary. I easily reinstall the applications Soundslides, iVCD and Earthdesk via downloads from the web. Happily I still had all the license codes. To get Fetch again I needed to upgrade to the latest version for a few bucks, but that too is now up and running. The Bad Photoshop CS3 install disk doesn’t run. In a bizarre twist it looks like CS3 is compatible with Snow Leopard but it seems that the tiny little program that installs the program isn’t. Adobe doesn’t support CS3 anymore. Supposedly there are no problems with CS4. I bite the bullet and order a CS3 to CS4 upgrade from Adobe. (I realize this is rewarding bad behavior). No longer have the CD or code for Word for Mac. Go out and buy copy of Microsoft Office for Mac 2008. Get …

Hachiko & Greyfriars Bobby

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Hachiko was an Akita dog that used to meet his owner at Shibuya station when he came home from work. One day his owner suffered a stroke while at work, died and never returned to the station. Hachiko, however, would return each night to the station ever waiting for his friend and master. A bronze statue of Hachiko stands near the main crossroads in Shibuya. It is one of the most famous meeting spots in Tokyo. Over on the other side of the world in Edinburgh, I photographed the statue of Greyfriars Bobby a Skye Terrier who spent  fourteen years guarding his owner’s grave. Although unlikely, if I ever make it to the grave of Bobbie, the Wonder Dog in Oregon, I will have completed the Super Dog Triple.

Pu’s 14th Birthday!

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Today is Pu’s 14th birthday. I just checked an online chart and it says Pu is around 88 in human years. Seiko made Pu a cake (sliced bread) with a topping of mixed vegetables. Once the candles were removed, it was wolfed down in a matter of seconds. Happy Birthday Pu!

On the Bookshelf: Marley & Me

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Just finished reading Marley & Me (along with several million other people if you believe the sticker on the cover). For those who haven’t heard of it, the book is a collection of anecdotes about the author’s life with his crazy labrador Marley.  The first few chapters are pretty much my life with Bear, while the later chapters are pretty much my life with Pudding. The last few chapters were tough to read. Pudding is 13 years old and almost completely deaf. She sleeps about 22 hours a day, and only has short ambles around the garden as her legs are a little wobbly. Hopefully the magical elixir that seems to extend life on Okinawa will work it’s wonders, and Pudding will be able to sniff, snooze, and watch over Bear for years to come.

Lab Report – Bear test

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  Just got a Chew n’ Clean toy for Bear.  A bargain at only 3 bucks.   The Hartz website states: “Our Chew ‘N Clean® Tooth Scrubber™ was developed by veterinarians to promote dental hygiene during chewing. Great for aggressive chewers, these durable multi-material toys are safe and long-lasting and promote hours of chewing. Rotating rubber rings help gently massage gums and clean teeth of plaque and tartar.”    Opened pack, gave to Bear, and thirty seconds later saw this…. Chew n’ Clean : developed by veterinarians, destroyed by Bear.

Lab Report – Bear gets her 9 vitamins and iron

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Got up this morning went into the kitchen, ground some beans, stuck them in the coffee machine’s little gold filter funnel, filled the reservoir with water and swtiched it on. Normally I have granola, but today I grabbed an unopened box of Frosties and popped it on the kitchen counter. I went to turn on the computer and check the news while the coffee machine did its magic.   Five minutes later, having read that a North Korean ballistic missile was about to be fired over (or possibly into) Japan, I returned to the kitchen. I was greeted with the smell of fresh coffee and  …. There were two suspects. Pudding was fast asleep. Bear was racing around the kitchen with a mad gleam in her eyes. I picked up the trash, then had my cup off coffee with a piece of toast.

Lab Report – OAARS Okinawan American Animal Rescue Society

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The Okinawan American Animal Rescue Society  OAARS is a fantastic program whose main goal is to find homes for stray and unwanted animals on Okinawa which would otherwise be euthanized ( a polite way of saying killed).  I am writing about them here (in a blog that is meant to be predominantly about photography in Japan) because my friends Theresa and Michael saw that there were some labs that needed homes and hoped I’d be interested.  As much as I would love another lab, or two or three, Pudding and Bear are quite enough right now. Hopefully, however, there is a reader out there who would love one of these beautiful creatures, and make the dogs, the people at OAARS, Theresa, Michael and myself extremely happy.  As an added bonus adopt one of these dogs and you can then come and hang out with Pudding and Bear at the beach!   Labrador retrievers are quite possibly the best dogs in the world. They are loving, smart, sensitive, beautiful, playful and have great temperaments (although Bear has some issues). But….. …