Stijn!!

[RKDinOKC]

Wished I could just say no to the Microsoft Jugglerknot. However, managing and supporting it pays my bills.

Have a friend that once worked at Apple.
His job title was Internet Evangelist.
He was responsible for Microsoft writing Internet Explorer for the Mac back when there was only Netscape. It was a test.

Microsoft had been writing Mac versions of Word and Excel on the Mac. They had switched to porting the Windows version to the Mac. The Windows version of Word, was not nearly as good as the Mac version and they were losing market share.

He proposed to Microsoft that they write Explorer for Mac on the Mac.
Microsoft did, and it was hugely successful.
Because of that success they created the Mac Business Unit and went back to writing the Mac versions of Office on Macs instead of porting the Windows version to Mac.

You would think that this guy would like at least the Mac software from Microsoft. But, to this day that friend refuses to use ANY Microsoft Software or Products. Says it is a matter of Principle.

[GH85Carrera]

Whew, I was out and about in 99 degree heat driving the Elky in stop and go traffic. Mostly stop is seemed. I hit every red light just as it turned yellow and got to wait the full length of every light. Back when my Elky was 100% stock and only had 42,000 miles it would overheat in hot weather like this. And the AC would have been pitiful. Fortunately 310,000 miles of my ownership the cooling system works but I will admit the water temp got to 215 at some of the long lights. The AC did OK. The extra fan I wired in helps a ton. The bigger radiator, commercial duty water pump and clean system help even more.

I was out and about checking out the different print shops for wide format printers. They range from huge places with a a bunch of employees to the mom and pop with three employees. I am after the quality and low price. Gotta have both. One place could not print bigger than 36 inches, so they were off the list. One place has the same printer we used. If they know how to operate it, it should be fine is the price is not crazy high.

[RKDinOKC]

Used to use a place that was a travel accessories shop. They had a big printer and laminator to do travel photos and maps for posters. Don't know if thy are still in business though, been a looong time and they were NOT spring chickens at the time.

[flipper35]

At least with the same printer it is a known piece of equipment. You could tell them what settings you need.

[GH85Carrera]

I had to play with the new toy, um I mean tool. The camera is bad ass.





Just straight out of the camera the file is a 60.4 MB tif file. It shoots a 5616x3744 pixel image. That works out to a 23.4x15.6 inch image at 240 PPI.

The top image is from the 17 to 40 zoom but to upload it I had to reduce the image size a lot. The bottom image is the 100% view at the full resolution.

It makes some big ol images. It can shoot at 4 frames per second for as long as the data card has room. Cool machine. Not as cool as the new state of the art stuff but plenty good for us.

[Jim Richards]

Nice toys, Glen! For the next few days, my life will be mudding & sanding drywall. This is what I retired for.

[RKDinOKC]

Glen, you guys ever use tilt-shift lenses?

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by RKDinOKC

Glen, you guys ever use tilt-shift lenses?

Totally not needed for aerials. Great for shooting a building. I did tons of tilt shift to shoot buildings with a 4x5 camera. Never had one for a small format camera.

I used to have to shoot copy work of all sorts of "art" from garbage to an original Leonardo da Vinci that the owner sold for 18 million.

Reflective surfaces tend to get a reflection of the camera on dark images. I could shift the lens to one side and the reflection was a black cloth beside me no of me or the camera.

[RKDinOKC]

Didn't know if you used tilt-zoom in some of the aerial shots or not. Do know the good ones is suspensive.

Used an old bellows style 4x5 that tilt-shift was part of the bellows thing to do product photos.

Now just do the tilt-shift lens correction in Photoslop.

[Outback Porsche]

Talking about cameras, I bought a camera system for my motorcycle today.

[Porsche-poor]

morning all. I need to retire. work wants me to go to ft worth next week. Wife is still on the hook for radiation which I will not need to take her to but need to help out around the house. The kicker is that the project is over budget, behind and now its an emergency to send me out.

[GH85Carrera]

Morning all.

I finally had to break down and RTFM. (Read the *fuc*ing manual) to figure out how to get the camera off of full auto everything to be set at ISO 800 and 1/4000 second exposure. With an F 2.8 lens that works great. We need the high exposure because the airplane is moving at 100+ MPH in a circle and any turbulence makes for a bumpy ride. Hot days makes lots of turbulence.

The camera will do 1/8000 of a second. That is amazing. (use geezer voice) Back when I was a puppy and bough my first 35mm professional camera it was able to do 1/1000 second exposure. That camera system paid for my 914 and a lot more. I still have it in the closet only for sentimental reasons. It is beat up, and worn out. It has been through race riots and hundreds of press conferences and speeches and many factory floors.

[GH85Carrera]

I was cleaning the lens and was fascinated by the reflections from all the elements in the lens.

You can see I am in my socks and no shoes.

Shorts and a t-shirt are the dress code for sure!

[Porsche-poor]

all you camera guys are alike. crazy for gear. LOL

[flipper35]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

I had to play with the new toy, um I mean tool. The camera is bad ass.





Just straight out of the camera the file is a 60.4 MB tif file. It shoots a 5616x3744 pixel image. That works out to a 23.4x15.6 inch image at 240 PPI.

The top image is from the 17 to 40 zoom but to upload it I had to reduce the image size a lot. The bottom image is the 100% view at the full resolution.

It makes some big ol images. It can shoot at 4 frames per second for as long as the data card has room. Cool machine. Not as cool as the new state of the art stuff but plenty good for us.

If you are using the continuous drive make sure you have a good card for it. Some of the lesser ones won't cut it, even if they are the good brands.

Nice toy, oops, tool though.

[flipper35]

The Canon is usually pretty intuitive once you get going on them.

[GH85Carrera]

We don't ever need to fire rapidly. The ground is almost always stationary.

The airplane is moving but it is several seconds before it has moved far enough for for the view to change enough to matter. We don't use this camera in a mapping mode, nadir or straight down is when it matters to have fast firing. The mapping camera we have is hooked to a laptop and the laptop stores the images via USB. There is a flight plan software running and it knows via the GPS and IMU where the camera is, and just when to fire. If we are in a C210 or something going 160 and down at 2,000 feet the camera has a tough time keeping up.

The current state of the art dream systems that we will never have cost over a million bucks and have all the bells and whistles. Our mapping camera cost a lot, but not nearly that much, not even close.

The old pinnacle of state of the art film camera the former company bought was $480,000 new 10 years ago and it might find a buyer for it at 25 grand now. Heck we had to send that film camera in to be cleaned and lubed and then get it certified by the USGS every three years for a cost of 20 grand. A 500 foot roll of film is $3,800 now and then a buck per foot to process it and then scan it frame by frame on a scanner that costs more than my house.

[RKDinOKC]

Almost surprised they don't have the new cameras so you can review and control the settings on a computer or smartphone app via wifi or bluetooth. Would be neat to set up a wifi network with a laptop and have the camera auto copy the pictures to the laptop right after it takes them. It's only batteries right?

[GH85Carrera]

We flew a job for a client with the Canon. It is construction progress report monthly flights. The file are just large. I had to resize the files down to make it easier to FTP. The customer just makes up a report for the management and the final client to show what they accomplished that month. Mostly power point and printed reports with the image as part of the page. They are not used as large prints so a 50 MB photo is total overkill.

We had a tiny rainfall today. 0.07 of an inch. They had a lot more at the construction site. It was raining when our pilot got there so he shot it in the rain. No shadows and it looks great. We had to drop back to a 1/2000th shutter speed without upping the ISO and getting silly.

[GH85Carrera]

Oh, while I was out and about this morning in the Elky the inside door handle came off in my hand. It is just pot metal and not that hard to replace, but a pain in the butt.

I have to roll the window down and reach over with my right hand to reach the outside door handle that is waaaaay back in the back of the door which is 12 feet long. Well, my mom told me a million times not to exaggerate but I never listened.

Pro tip: If ya really want to look like a hillbilly, roll the window down to grab the outside door handle. Rotate most of the way around behind the steering wheel to use your right hand to reach back as far as you can to grab the outside handle. I think I bought a spare one long ago but if not that is my next quest.