Thanks both for the tip on how to present the pics in a grid. I’ll be sure to use them next time.
I got an email from Apexel who make the lens. They told me it was pucker and was not a zoom lens, but a telephoto one, so fixed at 36x. Feeling a little guilty now getting a tenner off from the seller!
Anyway, the 20-40x zoom will arrive in the next week away on the slow boat from China which is the one I want, so clock in France, here I come!
Have a nice day y’all… 
From what little I know about lenses fixed focus tends to mean better quality images, adjustable lenses sacrifice something in order to provide convenience.
I once had a fixed focus 50mm lens on my camera which produced a noticeably brighter and sharper image than the zoom I was using. That meant of course less versatility. The zoom made framing the image simpler and point and shoot was easy. It is swings and roundabouts I suppose.
Bet you’ve got your eye out checking for that delivery man.
It is so long since I took photos. My wife has been doing it for me. It’s time I made an effort, even if the results are not to my liking.
Well its been I while and I’m rusty, almost forgot how. I finally took a shot.
7.00 am Tuesday February 2024
Here in my chair I am sat
This cup of tea
Is just for me
You don’t get better than that.
keep on keepin’ on
@Bobbi This is quite amusing and happend to me. When I first started to learn Gimp I was looking at how to replicate familiar Photoshop techniques. So I was innocently googling Gimp masking etc and shortly after on Facebook I couldn’t understand why I was being bombarded with suggestions to join some rather dodgy looking interest groups. When the penny dropped it did make me laugh, but it also confirmed that Big Brother is in fact always watching you, which isn’t quite so funny 
@Bobbi Nice pics! And a demo of the grid feature you told me about too. Your comments about fixed/variable zoom were interesting and although I’ve ordered the variable zoom for convenience, you reminded me about the quality issue between fixed/variable zooms. Armed with that info, I’m going to keep the fixed 36x for now so I can play with them and compare the two.
Yes, the postie turned up this morning and I nearly got excited, as I checked the tracking and the lens seems to be with Evri, so in the UK. But no, not yet, I’ll have to be patient. In any case as really need to discipline myself and make the lens clamp first. On that note 4 1/4" UNC nuts arrived today. Not really part of the design, but thought they might come in handy.
News here is that the phone is mounted on the tiddly plastic tripod in the garden, set to record 8K video @3 fps and is positioned just above a small pile of mealworms and peanuts as I know the local squirrels like them both. I’ve not seen any there yet, but will leave it for a few hours and check the video, rather than sit and watch. My wife says she saw a neighbour’s cat having a sniff, so that might be a decent shot 
. Just hoping the phone’s there later and not stolen by some random fox!
Yes, of course a screenshot is a photo It’s an image isn’t it?
@Strings Your post made me laugh, but you’re right about being tracked everywhere you go. Now, if someone secretly installed covert video cameras in your home, you’d be upset, of course, but Google and web sites do this all the time in secret. They used to place tracking cookies on your computer, but now it’s Browser Fingerprinting.
I was chatting to a friend about Anxiety and we talked about Monty Pythons’ worried song. I found it on Youtube and sent her the link via WhatsApp. A day later, when I logged into BBC Iplayer, I got a notification that there was a program on anxiety. Now THAT I don’t like! I’ve been interested in Internet Privacy for some time and think it’s important, from protecting you from unwanted spam, to guarding against being hacked.
Ok, off my soap box… 
If I get a single frame of the video that isn’t just our grass, I’ll be sure to post it up
Cheers Steve
@fryingtonite I agree completely about preserving privacy. It’s something we should all do as much as possible because there are people who try their hardest to look into every aspect of our lives.
Hi @Strings Yes, it kicked off for me when a few thing happened in my life. The first was my stepdaughter was buying a house, funded in a large part by her inheriting from her dad a few years ago. She fell victim to a solicitor-type scam and transferred the 42K deposit to the scammers. Not only a lot of money, but losing her dad’s money hit her hard. Long story short, she got all the money back from the bank under the CRM scheme which refunds you if you’re a victim of a scam.
Soz all, I’m off topic and don’t want to hijack the photography thread, if you want to start an Internet Privacy/security thread, I’ve got plenty to say to anyone that wants to listen
Cheers
Steve
Replying to my own message again. How are you Steve? Not bad thanks Steve
OK back on topic. The phone was set up yesterday, on the diddly toy tripod nice and low next to a stepping stone on the grass. Thought I’d put some mealworms and peanuts on the stone to attract the little devils as they nick the bird’s stuff, so I know they like them.
The only buggeration factor was that we keep the cat biscuits in the same type of unlabelled contaier as the peanuts and I’m not clever enough to recognise the difference when they are in my hand… You can guess the rest… I put down cat biscuits and mealworms, a fact which was not lost on the local cats, so if anyone is short of any pics of cat’s bottoms, I’m your man
On the more technical and less stupid front, it all worked very well. I now have a 3.5 hour 4K video of the stepping stone/grass/cats/no squirrels. I checked the res of a single frame and it’s 3840 × 2160, so the same as a 4K telly. Nice.
The mp4 file is pretty flippin’ big @6GB and took a while to copy from my phone and had to free up some space on my laptop as it was nearly full. To view the video, I used an old program called Virtualdub, or more precisely, the later version of vitrtualdub2. This is the fastest video viewing/cutting/copying program I’ve ever come across. Its performance is brilliant, even on my laptop which came out the ark. It’s a DOS program, so you open a command window and run it from there.
The first attempt to view the video and find the frames was using VLC, which I really like and will open/play pretty much any audio/video file, but the only capture is screen capture, which means the image would be at best, the resolution of my laptop, which ain’t anywhere near 4K (I wish!)
Anyway, I’ve been all the way through the video and despite it being of the wrong type of animal (DOH!) it’s pretty good and I think there’s a couple of good shots in there which I’ll post up when done, probably in a grid too! Brace yourselves…
The only other thing I’d change is I set the phone to record 4K and forgot it also does 8K, so will do that next time. Now that file’s gonna be a bigun!
any road up, I’m so pleased I’ve actually done some hobby stuff after such a long time, but have absolutely exhausted myself, so will take it all a bit slower in case my head explodes. I’m not surprised I’ve burnt myself out as it’s been such a long time, it’s generated some anxiety. General good feeling though and one of great achievement, apart from the wrong animal thing
On a different note, I just checked the tracking for the 20-40x lens and it’s with Evri, so in the uk and in my town! 
. MIght come today. Probs won’t do anything with it yet, though, some films and a big fat chill today and recover from all the excitement.
Have a nice day y’all…
Cheers Steve
Sotware I get from the internet. A new topic.
Thanks for your concern about keeping the integrity of this thread. Staying on topic, it is often quite easy to wander. I suppose you could start a new discussion yourself.
My interest in all this is to attempt to choose software that promotes independence. I will say more if you start up with a discussion about these matters elsewhere. Maybe a discussion about obtaining and using software in. Oh gawd I’m waffling again.
. . . and actually I am very interested in your backyard photo studio and looking forward to seeing some of the results.
I might try little gentle table top imaging and imagining for now.
keep on keepin’ on
Hi @Bobbi Thanks for the new thread, which I found very interesting ad banged on a bit myself
On the backyard studio, The Munsen (pipe rings) arrived today, along with the base plate for the mounting. The rings fit quite nice, but being picky, not rock solid so I’ll order a bit of silicone rubber sheet just to pack it out a bit. A mm or 2 would probs do it.
I’ve attached a photo of what I’ve got so far. I think the rings will fit ok, but a bit of drilling needed as the mountings are 10mm, so I need a couple of short 10mm bolts, which hopefully I have in the shed, but if not the local hardware store pretty much has everything.
So, below is the lens with the Munsen rings attached, the base plate and the joke of a mounting ring supplied with the lens. Now, I’ve taken a bit of a punt with all this fitting to the new lens (20-40x). Looking at the apexel site they seem to use the same farty ring to mount the new one. I’d assume they make their lenses with the same mounting, rather than make a whole bunch of different rings, one for each lens. Finger crossed! We’ll see.
I’m having a bit of a chill day today, but will get onto the video/frame grabs later if I’ve got enough lead in my pencil. My wife wants me to fit a new light in the bedroom too, so see how it goes.
Hope you all have a good day…
Cheers
Steve
As a slight digression I would like to assert that we need this sort of material to provide relief from the continuous challenge of disability.
It is rewarding to discover that we can make some sort of headway in dealing with projects both complex and simple.
What we do has relevance and importance. I’ll shut up now and let the work in hand proceed.
keep on keepin’ on
@Bobbi Thanks very much for your positive comments and if it dos encourage other, then that would be great!
So to bang on some more, I checked on eBay for some silicone sheet and found some, but also 25 mm wide 2mm thick neoprene strips, which I’ve used before and is very non-slip. The seller offers a 200mm sample for 98p including postage. Not quite long enough for the 2 clips, so splashed out and bought 2 samples. Bargain!
Also managed to find a couple of M10 bolts in the shed, too long so will need cutting down. Also need to drill some 10mm holes in the plate, but must stop now in case it’s all wrong for the new lens and have wasted my time. Anyway, need to fit that light in the bedroom, otherwise there will be words I think. Reminds me of an old joke:
If my wife asks me to do something, I’ll do it. No need to remind me every 6 months. One for the ladies…
Cheers
Steve
And the latest in the saga… The new lens arrived today as hoped and it’s shorter than the 36x and a bit fatter. It comes with a rubber eyepiece that fits on the end, so you can use it as a monocular. I tried it and it works. 
The diameter of the tube is 44 mm at the point where I can fix it, so the Munsen ring is very snug and tight, so no need for packing. If anyone wants to buy a couple of strips of neoprene rubber, I’ve got some on the way
Due to the design of the new lens, I can only fit one Munsen ring on it, meaning it’s only got a single mount point, and really I wanted 2 for the best stability, but will give it a go and see how it is.
On the bright side, the mounting screw for the Munsen rings is M10, or 10mm, so pretty chunky. The ring clamps the entire circumference of the lens, so that’s good and better than the piddly ring supplied with the lens, with a tiny screw in the top.
If there’s any wobble, I’ll probs put a drop of superglue on the thread and get a couple of star washers to help. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get some time and make up the mount. I’ll post up a pic if I can get it made up. Oh yes, the remote Bluetooth shutter arrived too and it works, so no more tapping the camera to take a shot.
On the garden time lapse, I went through all 3.5 hours today in fast motion, noting each frame I want. Tomorrow I’ll use Virtualdub2 to delete boring bits and export the remaining video as .png files and pick the ones I want. When you do this, Virtualdub numbers all the output images with frame numbers and you can open the sequence and it will play them like a video. It doesn’t care if the input is an mp4 file or string of images. It just works the same. Nice.
Bedroom light didn’t get done as I crashed. Wife’s working tomorrow, so must get it done before she gets home. I can turn the mains power off to my heart’s content. Must get out more…
Cheers
Steve
Hehe nice pics . I like the one of the carved wood panel. Brill!
Latest here is that the lens clamp is finished. I’ll post a pic up below, then one later with it mounted on the tripod.
The hole for the M10 screw in the plate should be 10.5mm and my largest drill was 10mm. So, being an out-and-out professional, used the 10mm one and wiggled it a bit while drilling. Just dandy. As mentioned above, only 1 mount point, but it’s flippin rock solid. This afternoon I’ll set up up on the tripod in the kitchen and zoom in on the bird feeder in the garden and see what comes out the pot.
On a pesronal note, after a huge amount if time of doing no hobbies, I’ve had to climb a mountain to do this. I feel very rewarded, but spent. Funny thing is, if you don’t do something for a long time, in your mind it grows in difficulty. Then when you come to do it again, it requires extreme effort, often overwhelming and exhausting. It’s not a comfortable thing to do, but it is the right thing I think.
Doing all this has given me more ideas. I have a rechargeable torch with a wand type lamp. I could set it up in the garden overnight, using the torch for illumination and record 8K video all night. The torch might be enough to attract local wildlife, but could pop some dog food out for the foxes/hedgehogs. I checked on a couple of vet’s web sites and you shouldn’t feed cats dog food on a regular basis due to different nutritional requirement, but it won’ harm them on occasion, so all the local cats would be ok.
Food for thought…
Cheers
Steve
Is that really food served from a hay filled tray?
Yes
8 course tasting menu with matched wines.
Looks lovely, but where I am from, that might be served in a barn. And I am, of course, teasing you a bit. The meal looks yummy, the hay threw me off. Although, you can eat it, if you like.
No you don’t eat the hay It was just part of the dramatic staging for the dish
Lea is going to post foodie pictures probably to Instagram later she is @BakersBunny on there too
Nice pics @SimonInEdinburgh looks like a nice trip out. Down in the Southeast, I’ve processed the video and extracted the frames I like. Learnt a bit too, but for now, here’s the pics:
The image processing took ages reminding my laptop is very old, so will bit the bullet and order a new on today. One issue was the procedure I used. There was lots of ‘no action’ in the video, so intuitively, decided to cut out all the ‘blank bits’, export the result to a bunch of .png files and step through those to find th decent shots. However, Virtualdub is much faster at scanning through a video file than a load of single images. Next time, I’'ll scan through the video, delete the blank bits, then step through the remaining frames, deleting all the gunk and ending up with only good frames. Then export the entire resulting video and all the images will be the ones I want. Also getting a better laptop than Noah’s will make a difference
All the images above were 4K, so 3840x2160. Most of the above are smaller as they are cropped. I’d like to push the boat out a bit further and try an 8K video, but will wait for the new laptop for that. The video this time @4K was 6.5GB, so the next will be a bigun!
I chose the export format as .png as this format does compression, but unlike .jpg is not lossy, so you get the full monty.
as I could only fit 1 Munsen ring on the new zoom lens, I have one spare, so have ordered another metal platform for the fixed 36x lens. The I’ll leave them clamped on all the time, and when I go out and about, can change lenses easily, rather than mess around removing and clamping lenses. Must get a bag to carry them in.
Ok that’s it for now, I’ll get off and order that laptop, then lie on the sofa in a coma
Cheers
Steve
