Missed Opportunities

There have been a couple of good mornings (due to the cold) that I should have gone and taken sunrise pictures. This morning was one of them, but alas, I stayed in and worked on the pano head. The page is up for it, although not complete. I think I’ll be done once I obtain an inch long 1/4-20 flat head machine screw and get the 1/4″ hole in the rotator plate enlarged to around 5/16″ to allow for the brass threaded insert to screw in.

I was playing with Erica’s mom’s camera (Canon PowerShot S30 IS) and Erica’s camera’s yesterday. Definitely fun times experimenting with stuff and a lot easier than using film. I got a really good one of Bailey looking sad while lying on the floor.

Lilly finally settled into her vibrating chair thing which I think she doesn’t like or was too awake to want to sit in. The cool thing to do with her is to stick your tongue out and have her mimic it. Everyone is doing it.

Played some Halo with Justin yesterday and then flew a couple of combat missions with him and Sean in Flanker 2.5. I accidentally removed the F/A-18’s from the mission and it kept the F-14’s, but at a lower skill level so it wasn’t hard to get behind them and go for the kill. I might set it to random next time because not every AI pilot should be average or excellent.

One thing I haven’t done lately is flown my Havoc Heli; this will need to be remedied.

New Pentax Digital SLR’s

Pentax is releasing two new Digital SLR cameras, the K20D and the K200D. Read the press release here.

This is exciting news because as soon as these start shipping, the K10D will drop in price and may be even more affordable.

Some guy at work sold his Pentax K1000 for $20 today which included a flash, the 200mm telephoto lens that I have and 50mm kit lens. $20 is a steal for that camera and I paid around $9 on eBay for the 200mm lens which has a dent in it. Too bad I didn’t see the post earlier so I could try to get the lens only from him. I’m stuck waiting for a JIS screwdriver set so I can take the lens apart and try to push the dent out. I have taken pictures with the lens and they came out good, but it’s hard to zoom in an out because of said dent (which also affects focusing).

In related news, Erica’s dad bought a Canon Rebel XTi which we’ll have to borrow sometime. Would make for fun shooting with the pano head which I should be able to finish this weekend assuming I can find a 5/16th and a little larger drill bit.

Welcome to the freeze…

It’s -12° F outside right now and won’t be getting too much warmer, although it will be above 0° F. At least we can be inside all day and not have to do anything.

Erica and I have been watching a ton of Arrested Development. We’ve made it to where she started watching in Season 2 and can probably head to Season 3 to finish the series. It’s been fun hanging out with her while watching tv.

Work on the Pano Head is going well. I’ve changed the design last night so I need to get access to a bandsaw to cut some of the pine board I have for the rotating base. My design is similar to this, but not made of aluminum and will be slotted to fit a wide variety of cameras. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get Erica’s point-and-shoot Sony on there and try it out with something digital for fast results. Too bad the Sony’s don’t have the stitching assistant like the Canon point-and-shoot’s. I have forgotten to document the building process, but will have a page dedicated to it when it’s complete.

Justin, Sean, and I played some Flanker 2.5 yesterday for the first time in ages. The last two fights were good as I most of the bogey kills. Those two are definitely better pilots than I, but I have been out of practice. Justin and I also played Halo for a bit before flying to see if something on the Bungie forums was correct about a different ending for Legendary. We had seen the ending before, but there is more video after what we thought was the end. Definitely worth beating the game on Legendary and show’s insight into a new possibilities for Bungie to make as a game. We also had the worst lag ever on the last level on Co-op so driving the Warthog was a pain, but Justin had the best dismount ever due to not being able to get the Hog over a gap. I’ll have a picturementary as soon as the last picture show’s up on my Bungie account.