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Marcus Rowland

Marcus Rowland

Member Since 19 Feb 2017
Offline Last Active Sep 29 2023 12:52 PM
*****

#85017 D50 replacement that won't break the bank?

Posted by Marcus Rowland on 17 September 2023 - 05:09 PM

Welcome mcdoug.

 

Yes, it’s an old thread but perhaps Marcus will tell us what he eventually replaced his D50 with.

 

The D50 is quite cheap on the second hand market here in the UK, but there are other options.

Wonder what your budget is?

 

I have two DX cameras, D3300 & D3200 which I use regularly. I’m trying to stop myself buying a D7200, but the price is still high for these – perhaps £350 - £400 from a dealer with warranty.

 

Wonder if you can find someone local to you to borrow another AF-s lens to quantify the problem you have with D50 / lens?

As I said earlier in the thread, I replaced my D50 with a D90. Still lots around, not incredibly expensive, and retains compatibility with the earlier AF lenses.

 

I eventually changed up to a D7000 because they still support the even older AI lenses, and I own a couple and like not having to mess around with guesstimating every shot, but that's not something most people need.

 

I'm currently thinking about going full-frame but there's no urgency about it - I'll probably go for a D610 if I eventually take the plunge. Just not the D600, judging by its reputation!




#80906 Monochrome Monday, Oct 17 2022

Posted by Marcus Rowland on 17 October 2022 - 10:40 AM

Technically this is a colour image, but you would have to look hard to find anything that isn't shades of grey. Vivitar Series 1 100-500mm at 500mm with x2 Jessop teleconverter on D7000, 1/400th f11, hand held, taken on 6th October.

 

52409324086_9e4e833847_c_d.jpg

 

Full-sized image here

 

https://live.staticf...99c6040_o_d.jpg




#80747 Separating stuck filters

Posted by Marcus Rowland on 04 October 2022 - 06:59 PM

I've found a simple technique for separating filters that are stuck together, or remove them from a lens, which works a lot better than the round grip things that are sold for the job. You need some extra filters of the size you're trying to separate, and some strong tape - I found that carpet tape works very well, and peels off easily once you're done. The basis for this is that it's very hard to grip a single filter tightly enough to shift it, but if you can extend the part you can grip it becomes a lot easier.

 

Screw a couple of filters into the front of the filter you want to remove, but DON'T tighten them fully. Do the same at the back if you're trying to separate loose filters - that isn't possible if you're removing filters from a lens, of course.

 

Get a strip of strong tape which is at least as long as the circumference of the filters, and wrap it round the filter mounts, so that the tape is sticking strongly to all of the mounts but NOT the filter glass, making sure NOT to overlap the parts you're trying to separate. Repeat at the back if you're separating filters that aren't attached to a lens. Once you've done this you should be able to grip the stack of filters and turn it with enough force to overcome the friction that's causing the problem.

 

I managed to take apart a stack of twenty or so 49mm filters that way, all stuck together in twos and threes, having wasted way too much time trying to separate them with the plastic filter grippy things. Hope that this is useful to someone.




#79324 Another Flypast - The Queen's Platinum Jubilee

Posted by Marcus Rowland on 30 June 2022 - 03:02 PM

I see the WW2 commemorative flight more often than the other aircraft in this flypast because they usually do a flypast on the Queen's birthday and need to get the slower aircraft out of the way fast after they've flown over Buckingham Palace - they curve off north on a route that goes more or less over my house, which is 4km WNW of the palace, so if I remember it's going to happen I try to get out onto the roof and take some pictures. Unfortunately the other aircraft fly much further south from my point of view, and they're rarely visible because the view is blocked other buildings, trees, etc.

 

This is one I took with my old D90 in 2018 which I'm pretty sure was from the roof - not 100% sure because I somehow managed not to include any buildings or trees that would confirm the location, which isn't easy given they're only visible for about 20-30 seconds.

 

41240561640_81423f40aa_c_d.jpg

 

Full size here

https://www.flickr.c...eposted-public/


  • Ron likes this


#79073 Another Flypast - The Queen's Platinum Jubilee

Posted by Marcus Rowland on 11 June 2022 - 06:26 PM

Apologies, I forgot to post advance warning of this one - it was on June 2nd. Not as big as the RAF anniversary a while ago, but included aircraft from the other services. Pictures were again taken from from the South side of the Thames near Waterloo Station, unfortunately not as good a vantage point as last time.

 

52117440333_85510d4c5d_c_d.jpg

 

52117909340_0d00b1180a_c_d.jpg

 

52117397376_d6271f63c0_c_d.jpg

 

52116369412_f888c59503_c_d.jpg

 

More here (link to flickr) - https://tinyurl.com/t25bvseu




#76500 For Those Having A Bad Day...My Year Long Christmas Gift To All!

Posted by Marcus Rowland on 31 December 2021 - 01:19 PM

Sorry, forgot to post my card before Xmas

https://www.dropbox....s 2021.pdf?dl=0

Print the two pages back to back with short edge collation for best results.

The original illustration is here

https://ia600703.us.... 1915-12-25.jpg

Merry Whatever and a Happier New Year!




#75699 Curious to know if anyone has had issues from lasers

Posted by Marcus Rowland on 05 November 2021 - 02:49 PM

It's fairly unlikely - unless the ruler has a mirror-smooth surface the reflected light will no longer be coherent, so the main problem will be prolonged exposure to a bright pinpoint light, with a lot less energy than sunlight etc.

 

One thing that may help is using a polarizer - laser light is always polarized, so you may be able to get rid of most of the light that's still coherent and just see the scattered light which is a lot less damaging. A ruler that has a matt white surface might also help.

 

Hope this helps.




#75671 Got the First Stab Today

Posted by Marcus Rowland on 01 November 2021 - 04:52 PM

Had the AZ shots in February and May, and a booster shot on Thursday. The AZ shots were relatively painless, the booster was Pfeizer and had me feeling a bit sick for most of the weekend. Apparently the reason for that is that it makes antibodies a lot faster than the other injections, which is good from the point of view of protection, not so good from the point of view of feeling like crap for a while.


  • Ron likes this


#74020 AF Nikkor 28-100mm f1:3.5-5.6G - Sample Photos

Posted by Marcus Rowland on 27 June 2021 - 07:03 PM

Sorry - forgot to link to the test photos I took with this lens on a D90

 

https://www.flickr.c...157688963375130

 

Some examples (size reduced)

 

40198790284_b17da6b558_c_d.jpg

 

40907432571_4f129a52d3_c_d.jpg

 

39097571620_ae3e9ae027_c_d.jpg

 

40198729774_f0aee01ac7_c_d.jpg

 

27036516438_4bbd99ee6e_c_d.jpg

 

27036490238_2ecafa62ef_c_d.jpg




#73843 Partial eclipse 10/6/2021 UK

Posted by Marcus Rowland on 10 June 2021 - 01:05 PM

Wonderful - a few days of nice weather then we get stuffed when the eclipse comes along...




#73842 Partial Eclipse 10th June 21

Posted by Marcus Rowland on 10 June 2021 - 01:04 PM

London got glimpses of this through fairly heavy clouds - I managed to take a few pictures from a little before noon onward, using my D7000 and 100-500mm Vivitar zoom with a piece of reflective mylar to filter out enough light to keep things safe-ish.

 

Pictures are here

 

https://www.flickr.c...157719389363268

 

Here's the first one, reduced in size a bit, to give you an idea of what they're mostly like.

 

51238597494_bf1931d68a_c_d.jpg




#72558 Thermal Imaging

Posted by Marcus Rowland on 12 March 2021 - 07:54 PM

For my birthday I treated myself to a basic thermal imaging camera, the FLIR One, a little module which plugs into an iPhone. It takes a lowish-resolution thermal image (60x80) and superimposes the colour onto a 480x600 visible light image. It finally turned up earlier this week and I've been amusing myself with some fairly simple photography. A couple of examples:

 

View from the back of my flat (the white blob in the sky is the sun)

 

51028897598_2375280285_o_d.jpg

 

Heat plume above a candle flame

 

51028905048_10a5c0cafc_o_d.jpg

 

Plant on a window sill with cold glass

 

51028904978_dd5d257210_o_d.jpg

 

I'm still learning its capabilities, eventually I want to try stitching images etc. At the moment I don't think I'll eventually be going for higher resolution gear, but it's interested me enough that I'll be keeping it. An album here, I will probably be adding more in due course:

 

https://www.flickr.c...157718597329747

 

Anyone else using this technology?




#68089 Dragonfly - Kensington Gardens 28/5/2020

Posted by Marcus Rowland on 29 May 2020 - 12:21 PM

Nice resting dragonfly, not quite as clear as I'd like because I was testing a lens that has slight fungus

 

49946034782_89128a6d7d_c_d.jpg

 

Nikon D7000, Sigma 75-300 4.5-5.6 AF-APO

 

Later - reliably informed this is a damselfly, not a dragonfly. Thought it looked a bit small. My bad.




#68024 Nikon Z6 with Helios 44-2

Posted by Marcus Rowland on 25 May 2020 - 02:03 AM

Nice! The Helios can be a lovely lens - some test pictures I took with one on a Canon body here:

 

https://www.flickr.c...157676487175697




#65071 Going Wide

Posted by Marcus Rowland on 28 October 2019 - 04:39 PM

I've been playing with some seriously silly photographic kit recently, stuff that starts with the idea of wide angle and takes it up to 11 or more.

 

The first is a Cinemascope projector conversion lens mounted as a wide angle converter on an SLR. This works, except that you need a slightly long lens to start with - I ended up using a Helios 44-4 58mm Russian lens, anything shorter had cropped corners in the final image, and something even longer might have been better. I used a Canon Eos 400D because I don't have a good prime lens for Nikon in that focal length and the Helios would have needed a converter with a corrective lens; also because my Nikon weighs a lot more and is a lot more valuable, and I didn't want to risk hanging it onto an assembly of stepping rings etc... Unfortunately it's a bit of a pig to work with - you really need a tripod, the converter weighs more than a kilo, and with the camera, the lens, etc. you end up carrying about 5kg of kit. It's also very slow because for each shot you need to adjust the camera lens and the converter, and with this lens I had to bracket speed (because the lens has no connection to the camera's metering system), you have to keep everything dead level or there's distortion, etc. etc. I took 9 photos in the time it usually takes me for 50 or more when I'm testing something more conventional. Here's one:

 

48945429152_989ecaab09_c_d.jpg

 

The rest of this batch are here:
https://www.flickr.c...th/48945429152/

 

The other one is fairly low-tech; a Lomography Spinner 360º 35mm camera, which takes incredibly wide negatives on 35mm film - the whole camera whizzes round with the film pulled past the lens as it goes. You get 8-9 photos on a 36-exposure roll, and if you aren't doing your own processing it soon gets seriously expensive. And Snappy Snaps etc. really don't want to have anything to do with scanning or printing them! Ideally you're supposed to include the sprockets in pictures since they're exposed, but in practice (after messing around with my flatbed scanner and getting nowhere, it's just way too low resolution) I ended up having to convert the images in my crappy slide scanner, which really didn't want to know about anything larger than a 35mm frame, then assemble the images using stitching software. It's a bit of a pain, especially if you haven't worked with film in umpteen years and are a bit cack-handed... Some interesting results, but there was a reason I switched to digital and this really hasn't changed my mind! This is actually more or less the same scene as the first, if you look carefully:

 

48959191268_92440fe156_c_d.jpg

 

The rest of the spinner photos are here:
https://www.flickr.c...157711499565688

 

I'm probably not going to be keeping this kit but it was fun to play with.

 

Apologies if you see this more than once, I've posted something similar to the Pentax forums and will also be posting to the Canon forums.