Sugar by choffee on Zooomr
Small Cones by choffee on Zooomr
Nokia N800 by choffee on Zooomr
N800 eye. by choffee on Zooomr
N800 Spots by choffee on Zooomr

I had a go with the extension tube on my camera the other day and these are the results. No great masterpieces but quite interesting. There where a lot of misses to go with even this lot but I am getting used to the tiny depth of field and manual focus combo.

Playing with my new macro extension tube for my camera ( some photos to upload as soon as I get some time!), I have had to focus manually as there is no controls passed through to the lens. In the end I have found it easiest to set the focus to infinity and adjust either the zoom or the position on the object to get the best focus. What it has shown me is that the viewfinder is quite small, which I had not had a problem with up till now, and also it it quite difficult to focus.

Back in the day my old Pentax film camera had a manual focus and to help with that it had a bit in the middle of the viewfinder that split the image slightly so that you could tell that if the image was lined up correctly it was also in focus. Really simple and quick to get the correct focus.

I am also getting used to how much my tripod flexes when I have adjusted it to the right place. With the weight of the 70-200mm lens and the extender the end of the lens drops by just a little after I have set it using the tripod and when you take into account this is macro that can make quite a difference. It's quite a skill to set the tripod a little higher and let the lens fall to the correct place but I am getting better. That and moving the subject can be simpler!

Inside the canon ETTL flash extension chord

I recently gave in and purchased a remote flash chord from Jessops, although cheaper than the Canon one it was still £30. I searched high and low but could not find any information about building your own. I did find a couple of sites where people had cut the wire and added in an extension cable by fitting PS/2 keyboard plugs to the cut off ends.

I assumed that it was that it was because there was some complex electronic in the device to tell the camera and flash that they where off standard mount but having taken this one apart it looks like it was just the fact that the boxes at the ends are pretty bespoke with five pins and tripod mounts.

I have put up some photos of the inside of each end and thought there is a small bit of circuit board in one end I think it is only there to hold the pins in place.

Photo movements.

My Flickr pro account has run out. I have let it do so. I will probably renew it soon but for now I have switched to Zooomr. They should all come up on my PlanetChoffee. Now I know what you are thinking, "another account to create" but as you already have an ?OpenID account to comment on this site (Hint: Click on the "Discuss" link and sign up for an openid account or just use your own openid or livejournal account) then you can use that on Zooomr too. Hey if you do sign up them drop me a zmail and I will add you to the private groups so you can see all the hidden photos.

My Zooomr Photos

Built me a remote for my new camera.

On the side of my camera is a 2.5mm stereo jack socket that can be used to remote control the shutter release. During the last few dark shots I have been using the timer to try and avoid camera shake but this means that you have to wait an extra ten seconds before the shot fires.

After a bit of research I found a couple of sites that showed how simple it was to create a switch box to control it all. After digging around my box of bits for a while I decided that I would leave the speak and spell controlled remote for another day and head down to Maplins.

After a slight error of buying the wrong type of switch ( Hey it was in a row of push-to-make switches and had no label saying any different how was I supposed to know it was a push-to-break version!) I now have constructed what looks like a nicely homemade version a remote control complete with a latching switch for long bulb exposures. Time to get out tonight and grab some photos.