Canon AE-1 Repair

So a few weeks ago I finally got to play lightly with my mother's old manual cameras. We found the AE-1 and a Sears camera. Both were declared broken a number of years ago, and left to slowly cook in the attic. Along with some nice lens. I originally went up there looking for filters, which apparently we don't have any of. Either way I forgot about it until a few days ago when I was considering buying a broken digital camera off eBay to take it apart. After a few hours it occur ed to me I already had two broken cameras I could take apart. The AE-1 wouldn't advance, or let you press down the shutter, but otherwise looked okay. And it had been stored wearing a lens, so there wasn't much dust on it. The battery in it had worked, because the light meter functioned. But I had yanked the battery when we decided it was broken. We pulled all the batteries for recycling. So I took as many screws out of the AE-1 as I could, and found what could have been the problem. Subsequent web searches also pointed to what I had fiddled with likely being the problem. However I needed a new battery to make sure. Popped in the new battery, and like magic the dead camera seems to function fine. I am going to replace the light seals (which have decomposed to a black tarry mess, then try a roll of film to see how it goes. It has some nice lenses though I think the base 50 mm is broken, as the aperture inside it seems stuck halfway open and doesn't seem to open all the way up. Most of the lenses also need to be cleaned. It looks like the auto winder doesn't quite work anymore, but it might just be since there isn't any film in it. Both flashes we had seem to still work, and refresh amazingly fast on eneloop rechargeables. I'll see how it goes. It has taken some excellent pictures in the past.

A Better Moon

I'm getting a bit better. Waning Gibbous 97% of FULL 10/15/08 11/:27 pm. 1/250 sec. F/3.5 67 mm.

Full Moon

It got cloudy last night, but I got to play with the full moon a little with long exposures.

Worm Composting

Before I built an outdoor compost bin I tried worm composting. Worm composting requires a plastic bin with some holes drilled in the side and top. You half fill it with damp shredded newspaper, add red worms, and they theoretically eat your veggie garbage. They turn it into worm castings, some of the best type of fertilizer for plants. Eventually they eat all the newspaper, so you slide the dirt to the side, and refill half with newspaper and food to get an many worms to migrate as possible to the new bedding. Then the worm castings go out to the garden, hopefully worm free. I have a 3 foot by 18 inch worm bin in the basement. I've been heavily neglecting it since spring when I built an outdoor compost bin. I checked on them today, and no newspaper left, no food either. An entire bin of worm castings. Now if I can just get the worms to migrate, great garden fertilizer. It does look nasty in there. But I've never noticed any smell, and no fruit flies, which plague the outside one.

Numb Arms

It never fails. I always put off closing up the pond until the water is so frigid I can't get all the plants up without waiting to thaw. This year After I caught the fish the plants all got dropped back down, and hopefully I'll have an even better lily show next summer. The real reason I'm so slow at it is setting up the winter tank for the fish. Each year they get whatever tank I have empty. Some years They've just gotten big tubs in the basement. They lucked out with a 55 gallon tank. I had 5 goldfish survive this summer, and I think that may actually have been the number I put out. The Paradise Fish was a no show, but he was getting several years old. Plenty of mosquito fish survived as well, but I'm down to one male. Since I'm going to actually be able to see the fish this winter, they got names.

Moon Attempt

Waxing Gibbous 96% full 10/12/08 11:52 pm Took a number of pictures. Turns out an almost full moon is pretty bright. Ended up at 1/250 sec. Anything much longer turned into a white blob. This was handheld on the S3, Focus set to infinity, Image Stabilization set to off...

Cat Shelves

A few weeks ago I decided I was tired of my cat being afraid to come down the stairs to my first floor. I let my first dog get away with guarding the stairs, and the second went right along. They also constantly tormented the cat if she did get downstairs. After a few years I got tired of it. The cat didn't actually seem to mind much. Step one was training them to leave her alone upstairs, which has gone fairly well. I realized years ago, that it's my attention the dogs want. If I'm not in the room they completely ignore the cat. I've got them to mostly ignore the cat now, though the stairs are still a point on contention. To entertain the cat I put up some shelves in my living room. I adapted the idea from moderncat. Eventually there will be another wider shelf higher up to lay on, these are just the stairs. However I finally got her to jump from the lower one to the higher one with liberal use of cat treats.

Tired... Dog Hiking

Went on two hikes this morning. I bought a flea comb yesterday, hoping to avoid the bathing of the dogs when I got home. I didn't find any ticks, but haven't seen any either, so there might just have been less ticks where I went this time. First hike was to Wilson Mountain Reservation in Dedham MA. I checked it out Friday, making completely sure dogs were allowed. I also wanted to check out the map as I haven't found one anywhere online. Below is an enlarged photo of the map as it was posted in the parking lot. I walked the 2 mile green dot trail. Overall it was a nice flat walk, with a few climbs. There was one swampy area that needs a new boardwalk piece, so I wouldn't expect to get through dry in the spring. Toka got over all of it fine, but the board walk would have been a deal breaker for my nervous dog seen above on his first hike. The trail did have the same basic off-leash dog problems, and no one was cleaning up after their dogs, another sticking point for me. After the successful hike at Wilson Mountain I decided to test Boomer on trails. He isn't a big fan of other dogs invading his space, so I needed a less used trail. Ended up on Little Blue Hill in the Blue Hills Reservation. You have to park in the Park and Ride lot on the other side of the street from the Trailside Museum on rt 138. The Trailside Museum lots are packed on Sundays. I took the Skyline trail to where it intersected with the Green Dot Loop. Nice trail, lots of slipper orchids I'll be back to see in May. Saw one deer who wasn't happy to see us. Boomer was remarkably good for his first hike, and again I haven't seen any ticks yet.

Confetti

Just playing with some musical note confetti at a birthday party.

Day Off

My free day inspired me to go on a hike somewhere new that dogs were allowed. I love hiking with my dogs (well only one of them) but I've been limiting myself to winter hiking due to ticks. My hiking buddy came up with Lyme last year, and it was a pain to treat, so I've been avoiding it. I decided a few weeks ago I would just bathe her as soon as I got back, and today was the first opportunity I've had. We went to Signal Hill in Canton. It was great. Since it was Thursday mid-afternoon, we were alone. There's a little overlook you can see Boston from, and even this late in the year, I saw a garter snake, and several darner dragonflies. I'm not even mentioning the hundreds of grasshoppers that kept trying to escape us. There is also a canoe launch into the Neponset River. It isn't big. It was odd that there was a porta-potty in the parking lot, but no trash can. Kind of odd when they allow dogs. I was also quite impressed with Toka, she really is a dream to hike with due to training I did years ago, but very rarely use. She remembered all the commands I taught her, and now that she's a bit older, she was much more likely to obey them. Quite a joy actually. The after hike bath was fun, only seven ticks. Thankfully, only one was on me, and the ones that inevitably fell off in the car will get cooked tomorrow when it sits in the sun at work.

Backup Camera Found...

While browsing my local overpriced big box store I wandered over to cameras. I'm quite attached to canons, even though plenty of other brands seem to take perfectly fine pictures. I'm still stuck on canon. So I poked around with the cheaper Canons. I looked at the clearance cams, decided they weren't for me and spotted a funny shaped Canon in the ultra compact area. Unlike just about every ultra compact out there is wasn't a perfect unadorned rectangle. It was as several people have described a rounded brick. It was a Canon Powershot A470. In slight fiddling with the back I discovered that it had no viewfinder and no aperture or shutter speed control. Slight problem, but workable. I turned it to manual to see how the macro worked, and discovered it has SUPER MACRO...I haven't seen that feature in anything but the Canon S series, and the SX10IS that is coming out this month. Three days later after numbers of reviews, and a few searches on flickr for cloud pics taken by this camera I got one from Amazon for $30 bucks less than the local big box. I've had it 3 days. I was somewhat limited yesterday by working, but today I had off. I meandered taking okay cloud pics (not the camera's fault, the clouds weren't great, but I was curious) and found in addition to super macro, it has an infinity focus, which is handy since it has no manual focus at all. It's focusing modes more than make up for its very slow refresh rate from flash photos, and the glare problem it has in sunlight due to no viewfinder. So far I'm quite happy with my new backup camera, at least until I get my hands on the new Canon Powershot SX10IS.

New Babies

Saturday I went to the Reptile Expo in NH. If you have any interest in reptiles I highly suggest the trip. The only thing you have to keep in mind if you're from MA is that a number of the animals for sale, most notably chameleons and monitor lizards are illegal in MA. I've been planning to go for a few years, but always forgot the dates and missed it. This year I promised myself in September I'd remember to go. It was great. The only place I've seen thousands of reptiles and only one or two injured or ill, unlike most stores with tons of injured and ill on display for sale. I mostly bought food (500 crickets for $6.00!!!), but I got two new critters. A baby crested gecko (hopefully female) and a female Okeetee corn snake hatchling. Both are already eating heartily.