[Farktographer]

😆 Farktographer, what does it say about us that we both had the torture-prisoner-of-war idea? I blame TV. Or maybe it was those three tours in Da Nang (and all the chemicals ingested along the way) 😯 ]

Oh, it was Da Nang for you? I just sort of imagined what would happen if all us Nikonians could round up the Canonites. A day dream, you might call it 😈

[Farktographer]

The moment I clicked the link and did my wiki search and found, “The best place to see the 2012 transit is in the Pacific Ocean – including Hawai’i, Alaska, and central Pacific islands. Some organizations have begun to prepare for the 2012 transit well in advance, including a group organizing festivities and observation in Tahiti.[26],” my first thought was: Damn it, Plama!

Not that I’d even have the telescope to be able to shoot it if I wanted.

[Farktographer]

/Heh. RadioShack. “Can I interest you in some batteries to go with that, uhhh…… whatever it is you’re buying?”

I hear you brother, been saying similar things for some time.

The most important word you wrote IMHO was “abstract”. Abstractions are powerful tools: math, engineering, software and so on, but we’ve taken them too far (like we always do).

Money is an abstraction. You can abstract work, food, clothing, shelter and people away with it. Once you don’t have to do something hard or dirty or hot, once you don’t have to look the guy your firing in the eye it all becomes easier.

There is a term we use around here in our philosophizing; “intellectual laziness”. It’s when you take the easy way instead of putting forth the mental effort needed by some scenario. It is one of the contributors to the market crash. Some guy wrote a fancy program that a bank used as part of their analysis for investment risk. It worked so well other banks wanted it, so they sold it along with the instructions to use as part of the analysis. Their customers “just wanted a number to tell us if it was OK or not”. Soon everyone was relying on an unrealistic number out of intellectual laziness. You know the rest of the story.

Another example: Let’s say there’s a work rule that says “if you are using a pencil, you must wear stabbing protection so you don’t hurt yourself with the pencil”. The intellectually lazy CEO will be too important or busy to figure out for himself whether a worker he sees is supposed to have stabbing protection on, so he modifies the rule to be “every one must where stabbing protection”, even if they’re illiterate. Now the CEO can cover his ass with little to no effort.

Gah, enough late night ranting I guess.

Similar to why I have to spend 1.5 hours filling out a health and safety form every time I want to start a new reaction that takes goddamn 5 minutes to finish?

/So much hate.
//Seriously though, people spend too much time on the TV and interwebs and not enough time honing random knowledge. Not everyone needs to know how to fix their own camera, but knowing basic components isn’t too hard to figure out. I’m guilty of being lazy in the evenings, but try not to do it too much — the sonicator in our lab broke, and I called dibs on it if the powers-that-be declare it to be dead so I can try on my own home time to bring it back to life, or, scrap it and figure something else fun to do with it.

[Farktographer]

I had four ideas planned on the drawing board (no, seriously, I actually drew this out this time – my first time ever doing that for a photograph), but only 2 of them got rolling…so 2 of the 3 shots are going to be from the same session :-/ Still excited for this theme, though.

[Farktographer]

I’ll just wait for my camera to break, then send it to Orionid and hope for the best that it’s returned to me in some working order 😆

[Farktographer]

For backdrops, I often use flat sheets purchased at WalMart for 6-8. They work pretty well, come in lots of colors. For smaller shoots I drape a pillowcase over an artboard.

Wrapping paper also works well if you want a multi-coloured out-of-focus background for smaller set-ups.

[Farktographer]

OK… so I’ve got the room to take small chances with Nikon/Nikkor lenses since 1980?

AI was introduced in 1977. Any lens made since then can mount safely on any Nikon body, and most of them will be at least somewhat usable (the exceptions are some newer lenses on older bodies, where the aperture can’t be set, but there’s no risk of damage in that case)

My 50mm is a 1968 version, and with a cheap adaption to the back it fits my D7000 just fine. Takes beautiful photos, too. Just have to make sure I’m in manual mode, but point is that even with older lenses they should be adaptable to fit newer cameras.

[Farktographer]

Wow, I learned something new about my camera and old Nikkor lens. Thanks, sleeping!

[Farktographer]

Has anyone heard any news about a Canon answer to this; i.e., a new 5d model?

Last news I heard from Canon concerning this was a joint filing with Kodak for bankruptcy.

😆

/Too soon?
//Now I feel bad for Kodak again…

[Farktographer]

yeah, as long as it’s food, I see no problem.

So a spoon and a half-empty tub of Nutella fit the bill, right? That’s pretty much what I’m having right now.

/God, I love how cheap Nutella is in the UK compared to in the States. If we could import some proper bacon here, it’d be food heaven!

[Farktographer]

That’s a LOT to remember!
Gonna have to print that out before flea market season.

So, I guess i should stick to the Nikon or Nikkor brands if I don’t have paperwork specifically addressing compatibility?

Unless you find something cheap enough that it wouldn’t matter if you broke it (NOT your camera) in trying to get it to fit properly, I’d say that sounds about right.

[Farktographer]

If I had the 3k to spend, I’d be a kid the morning before Christmas right now. Keeping an eye on d700 listings, though I doubt they’ll drop much – Nikons rarely do :-/

[Farktographer]

The bike parking lot seems like it would work, because people could actually look at it and say “that is a parking lot.” The gondola though, seems like it’d be more of a dock.

Does anyone else have helpful input? I’m trying to keep things relatively narrow without being over-picky.

[Farktographer]

So, if it’s *just* cars, that means no motorcycle, tractor-trailer, or armored military vehicle specific parking areas?
I was under the impression that the idea was to focus more on the lot than the cars in them, i.e. don’t lose the forest for the trees.

I didn’t want this to be so convoluted. Photos of parking lots. Plain ol’ parking lots. Doesn’t matter what’s parked in them, doesn’t matter if they’re empty or full, but the subject should be the lot, not the things parked there.

If you ask someone, “is this a parking lot?” when they see your photo, the answer should be a solid, “yes.” I don’t know anyone who would call a boat dock a parking lot, or an airplane hangar a parking lot, so let’s not stretch things too far with the vehicles.

[Farktographer]

Let’s go with *just* car lots on this one, because that levels the playing field (everyone has access to a boring old parking lot) and makes sure that you’re doing your damnest to make something that is boring into something interesting. A rail yard with parked trains is just too cool compared to the local wal-mart 😉

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