I'm just curious - how the hell are you gonna focus a f/18.9 lens?!? Łukasz
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, May 20, 2002 10:18 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Pock and Eit ("Pock" is the sound of the giant pinball game of life giving you a free ball. An "eit" is something very bad; also an exclamation when something bad happens.) I've got a set up I've been referring to as my "helicopter rig". It's for trying to shoot pictures of the Baltimore Police helicopter in flight at a magnification that'll make the whirlybird something more than a teeny tiny fraction of the frame: it's a Tele-Takumar 300/6.3 (preset) and a Sears 3x teleconverter, currently attached to my Spotmatic, all on my backup tripod. Effectively a 900mm, f/18.9 lens, so the tripod's kind of important. There are two problems: first, the balance is wrong (because of the length of the teleconverter); second, the rear mounting flange on the teleconverter keeps getting pulled off because the three tiny set-screws that hold in in place aren't up to the challenge of holding the weight of the camera or that lens. So I got some 1/8" aluminum plate, cut off a reasonable length of it, drilled a couple of 1/4" holes, and bolted it (with some spacers) to both the tripod socked on the Spotmatic and the tripod socket on the lens, and figured that'll solve the problem of the teleconverter trying to pull itself apart. Then I set the whole thing on top of a ball-point pen turned sideways to try to find where the system balanced, drilled a slightly smaller hole at that point, tapped it with threads the right pitch for a tripod screw, stuck it back on the camera/lens, and mounted it on my tripod. Now I've got a much more balanced rig for chasing that doggone helicopter. Pock! But I was also eited recently: while helping a friend[*] move, and near the end of the evening, when I was way too tired from pushing my body too hard, my beloved KX took a short but painful fall (only about a foot and a half) while unloading my car at my friend's uncle's house. Eit! Now the needle in the viewfinder that indicates the selected shutter speed is no longer attached, and the film-advance lever doesn't spring back from the far end of its travel. (It'll spring back the rest of the way if I give it a tiny nudge.) I discovered the damage an hour later, in the diner we went to for an after-working-too-hard snack, when I loaded a roll of film to photograph her because she was looking especially cute. *whimper* "No good deed goes unpunished," I guess. Bleah. (OTOH, building up my "moving karma" might be a good thing, given that I just got word that an offer has been made on the house I'm living in. If both banks agree and there are no surprises in the house inspection, the house could have a new owner by the end of the month. So I might be moving myself Real Soon Now, despite having no idea where I'll go. The two slender threads of hope are: a) the buyer is looking for an investment, not a home, so _maybe_ he'll set a rent I can afford and I'll get to stay, or b) if the current owner's bank says no (it's $3K less than the asking price, and it's a "short sale" already), I _might_ still be able to qualify for the Homeownership for Individuals with Disabilities Program that I'm applying for, and buy the house myself.) So now I need a repair manual for a KX and some extra RAM for my LaserJet[**] so I can actually print out the diagrams; and/or a good repair shop and a pile of "extra" cash. And a whole lot of luck on the housing front. (In the meantime, I'm 1683 messages behind on reading the PDML, though I'm spot-checking recent arrivals for interesting bits once in a while.) Wish me luck! -- Glenn [*] The flute-playing cutie I think I've mentioned in the past. [**] It's a LaserJet IIP Plus, and I can't print out the ME repair manual at a high enough resolution for the diagrams to be useful. As far as I can tell, it wants some special HP expansion board to add more RAM to it. In the meantime, I'm wondering whether I'd do any better with the high-detail stuff if I dug the Epson LX-80 dot matrix out of the basement. It'd be slow, but if it gives me the resolution I need... (9-pin, but it makes multiple passes in "high res" mode.) - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org . - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
