The Long And Short

Wavelengths, that is.

I've been meaning to do this for a long time. I have two sibling camera setups. The Nikon D100R (a D100 converted to infrared use) with a 28-80mm f3.5-5.6D (New) AF-NIKKOR and a regular D100 with a 28-80mm f3.3-5.6G AF-NIKKOR. And I wanted to shoot them essentially side-by-side or rather serially, so I can see the same image in visible and IR.

Last Sunday was a chance to do it with bright sunshine and snow and ice. The IR shots were all done with the same false color settings on Ulead PhotoImpact 5.0 (Hue = +45, Saturation = -30), though with brightness and contrast adjustments they came out with different shades. Both cameras were set for ISO 200, so there were similar exposure settings.


The view SE of our garage in infrared. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


And the beautiful blue sky. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)

This all should have taken ten minutes, but after the first IR picture the D100R locked up its mirror and gave Err on the top LCD panel. This happened when I first received it -- there's a procedure in the manual. So I came inside, looked it up. You have to remove & replace the battery, then put a small pencil in a reset hole. I took out a small Swiss Army Memory knife, but the blade didn't fit. So I brought it in and rummaged around for a tool with a longer, narrower point. Finally it reset.

The manual suggests static buildup, critical given that the D100 uses a CCD charge coupled device sensor and not CMOS. I suspect that the change of the IR cutoff filter to an IR pass filter makes the D100R a bit more sensitive.

Okay, so my ten minute estimate was wildly optimistic.


South down the driveway. Notice the lens flare. While the 28-80mmD has both a lens hood and a Nikon 52mm NC filter, the NIC anti-reflective multicoatings are optimized for visible, not IR. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


With the dark trees. Didn't adjust the exposures on any of these -- just using center weighted metering and aperture preferred automatic A on both cameras. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)



Southwest into the sun. Strong lens flare is a fact of life in IR photography. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


Bright sun and backlight. Notice the complete lack of lens flare -- optimized lens coatings work. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)



Concrete pad iced over in front of a garage. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


You can see the line of melting at the ice edge. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)



Zoomed in on ice at end of sidewalk. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


The same. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)

Interesting.

Dr. Phil

It's Pączki Time!

As Ash Wednesday rolls around, so does Fat Tuesday slash Mardi Gras. And in West Michigan, that means Pączki *** in West Michigan. And in Southeast Michigan, too, for that matter.

Don't confuse Pączki with a mere jelly doughnut. A real Pączki is dense, heavy -- you cannot or should not eat a pile by yourself all at once. Mrs. Dr. Phil INSISTS on sharing one at a time for dessert. I could eat a whole one and it avoids the problem we had the other night of an unfortunate uneven distribution of filling. (grin)


Mmm... not doughnuts, but prune Pączki. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)

For us, the One True Pączki is the prune filled with powdered sugar. Alas, not as popular with others. It took Mrs. Dr. Phil a week just to find Pączki in our store, and as we have the last couple of years, ended up with a six-pack of Pączki -- a six-Pączki ? -- two each of powdered sugar, granulated sugar and frosted. By the end of the box, with just only (sigh) one a day, the last one will just be getting a little crispy.

Somehow we missed these in Pittsburgh, Buffalo, New York City and Chicago...

Dr. Phil

(1) Pronounced POONCH-key in these parts.

(2) From another website: "Pączki (actually this is plural; pączek is the singular form)"

The Last Week

It has been an "interesting" week or so. Lots of drifting, high winds, snow, subzero wind chills, subzero actual temps, blown fuse in brake lights, exams, blizzard whiteout conditions... and Spring Break. Or at least the WMU Spirit Day part of it.


Fine dry snow grains wafting across Warner near our house a week ago Friday. Actually, there was a stretch earlier next to an open field that created a big drift across the road to plow over, but I didn't get a picture of that. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


I tagged this as north of Allendale, thinking this was on the way to Chevy on Monday with no brake lights, but from the timestamp, this is Tuesday driving south on 68th Avenue north of the Grand Rapid. Oh, of course. There were drifts off the fields creating a sheet of glare white ice on Monday or Tuesday -- didn't get a picture of that, but this is south of there, just before Eastmanville. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


Dedication -- it's 7:33am, end of the driveway and I've got the window rolled down in subzero weather before the heater has gotten warm. All to shoot this lovely ice pillar caused by ice crystals above the rising sun. There were weak sundogs after the sun was up, but not worth trying to get. Anyway, Wednesday was a beautiful day, compared to overnight and Thursday morning. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


Roads were too dangerous Thursday morning, so I Skyped to sit and watch my exam at 10am. On the way to my afternoon PT appointment, I was shooting some shots of the blue sky above, when I remembered the broken traffic light at 68th and Warner. The signals were just put up a couple of years ago -- new lightweight bright LED signals. But one of the lens hoods was ripped off in our recent high winds.
EDITED TO ADD: Note the snow clinging to the lens hoods of the signals. One of the problems with the LED bulbs is that there's no Joule heating as with a filament bulb, so ice and snow isn't melted off. That can lead to large ice chunks falling on cars or weighing down the signal or making it more vulnerable to wind damage. Also, I've seen these being installed and they are very light, making me wonder if the new ones are molded plastic rather than sheet metal. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


Heading into Allendale you can see the snowclogged high wind clouds south of Allendale. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)

Pretty light snow drifting down outside here at noon on Saturday. Not quite a snowglobe. At Christmastime it would be exceptionally pretty. On the first of March, it's getting a little old for most. (grin)

Dr. Phil

We Gotta See This Movie!

Jesse Eisenberg, Jason Segel movie 'The End of the Road' braves harsh Michigan winter for authenticity's sake...

It's been four years since Grand Rapids has been in a real movie. And Jesse Eisenberg, probably best known for playing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, was here for 30 Minutes or Less, did another movie in Ann Arbor and will be Lex Luthor in the Superman and Batman shoot in Detroit later in 2014.

GRAND RAPIDS, MI - The harsh West Michigan weather has been a little rough on the filmmakers shooting “The End of the Road.” But it’ll look good on camera.

“The weather is a beast, but it’s also a part of the look of the movie,” said producer David Kanter of the film's production company Anonymous Content. “It’s true to the story to have an authentic winter.”

What's even better than Jesse Eisenberg shooting a movie in Grand Rapids, in the winter, in THIS Winter? Oh read on, gentle reader:

Principal photography on “The End of the Road’ began Feb. 19, and will continue for five weeks. The film is scheduled to wrap the week of March 24. Cast and crew have filmed in an apartment building on Wealthy Street SE, the Harris Building on South Division Avenue, and reportedly in locations in Allendale. (emphasis added)

After seeing Dr. Phil's windswept photos of West Michigan here on his LJ/DW blogs, see Allendale on the big screen. Well, um, maybe.

Anyway, we are amused. The production company, by the way, has done some great small films before, including the excellent Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

We shall keep you informed of developments.

Dr. Phil