May
25
An Elph is my new Leica bicycle
Filed Under Personal, Photography, gadget thoughts | Leave a Comment
I was a photojournalism student at the University of Missouri in the early ’90s when I discovered the Leica M. In contrast to the massive steel Canon and Nikon bricks we all used at the time, Leicas were small, elegant and unimposing.
Image from a fantastic New Yorker article on the Leica mystique
Despite my lavish $4,000 annual income, I vowed to acquire one. Luck would smile upon me (in the guise of a friend’s crazy photographer boyfriend) and I soon had not one, but a pair of well-used M2s.
My big Nikons (and later Canons) were the workhorses, with their choice of wide-angle and telephoto lenses, motor drives and fancy light-meters. Framing in an SLR was precise, showing you exactly where your focus was and what you would be capturing on film.
But I always had one of those little Leicas tucked away under my arm, loaded with forgiving Tri-X black-and-white film. In the large, bright viewfinder, everything appeared in sharp focus with transparent lines to show you *about* where the edges of your frame were. Focus was fast, but not precise- that’s why God made Depth of Field. There was no built-in light meter. Most of the time I’d set exposure by experience and let the film’s latitude take care of the details.
The Leicas were all about shooting fast and loose, ideal for catching quick, unguarded moments at unexpected times; the perfect tool for making pictures when you weren’t Making Pictures.
Fast forward about 10 years. Digital had finally stopped sucking and I bought a pair of Canon EOS 10d SLRs. Instantly in love with the ease of digital, my old Leicas were immediately relegated to the closet. I’ve been an digital SLR user for years now, but I’ve continued to long for that fast and loose, go-anywhere camera in digital form. Read more
May
17
multi multi tools
Filed Under Personal, gadget thoughts | Leave a Comment
My beloved Leatherman Charge Ti
I’m ‘that guy.’ You know, the guy in the office you find if you need a knife, a screwdriver or a pair of piers. I’m the dude everyone calls ‘MacGyver’ (both in that jokey to-your-face way and, I’m sure, in that creepy behind-your-back way). My boss has brought my nickname into 21st century and calls me Jack Bauer, which is cool ’cause she also allows me to torture people with electrified lamp cords.
I haven’t always been this way, but having spent 10 years traveling to places like civil-war-era Macedonia, Papua New Guinea and post-Katrina Louisiana, I’ve acquired a few hard-to-shake ticks. I never let my gas tank get less than half-full and I always carry a Leatherman.
History
Grandma has a tradition. When the boys in my family turn 12, she sends them a Swiss Army Knife. For all of high-school and college, it served as my one-and-only multi-tool. Being young and even stupider than I am today, I abused it repeatedly and managed to break both of the knife blades. I still have it, but it’s long since been retired from active use.
Supertool
By the mid-90’s, I’d finally arrived at my current place of employment, and I started getting mailed off to remote parts of the country and globe to cover news events. I carried lots of equipment- cameras, laptops, tripods and lights, and found myself in need of a more substantial tool to make minor and even major repairs. After a trip to REI, I became the proud owner of a then-new Leatherman Supertool.
It was monstrous by comparison to the little Swiss Army, but it could do so much more. The piers were a godsend and (hallelujah) it had locking blades. I still have a scar on my right index finger from that original SAK closing up on me in use, and I’ve never trusted a non-locking knife since then.
Even Lee D. Zlotoff, the creator of MacGyver, recently admitted that today Mac would almost certainly favor Leatherman tools.
Mar
29
Fenix pocket holster
Filed Under Bombproof bargains, Personal | Leave a Comment
I carry my Fenix light in my front pocket, but I found it was constantly shifting around and bothersome. More worryingly, I went to use it one day and found it was extremely dim. After examining the light, I found a dime had wedged perfectly into the bezel, completely covering the light (couldn’t be a more perfect fit if it had been designed that way).
I slapped this together in about a 1/2 hour, to keep it upright in my pocket while still being easy to get out. I took some thin thermoplastic I had laying around, probably scavenged from a vent cowling. I cut it to shape, then heated it and formed the “tube” using a lighter. I flared the opening a bit to make inserting the light a bit easier.
The plastic is slippery and I wanted to keep the holster itself from shifting around in my pocket. I cut some thin leather (scavenged from a $5 pair of thrift-store leather pants I purchased years ago for projects like this) and glued it on rough side out with 3M Super 90 spray glue. Not shown here, I enclosed the bottom so that change couldn’t get up into the bezel.
Finally, to keep the leather from de-laminating from around the ‘tube’, I punched a few holes and ran 2 small zip ties through.
The light is completely loose in the tube, held in only by gravity but because its also in my front pocket it’s completely secure. The leather-coated flat part on the side provides vertical stability in the pocket, and also provides a lot of additional friction to ensure the holster doesn’t come out along with the light.
Finally, to give the otherwise smooth light body some grip when my hands are wet, I cut some 3M stair grip tape to fit the milled flats of the light.
I’ve been using this setup every day for a month now and I’ve been hard pressed to find anything to improve in it.
Mar
2
(image from wikipedia) Our next instrument of non-destruction is, well, an instrument (or close enough that I can’t be bothered to come up with a better witty introduction).
Shure describes the model SM58 microphone as a “unidirectional (cardioid) dynamic vocal microphone is designed for professional vocal use in live performance, sound reinforcement,and studio recording” with “Legendary Shure quality, ruggedness and reliability.”
Their marketing team is obviously a bunch of pansies.
Let’s try “the Sure SM58 is a small, hand-held tank, suitable for use in all hazardous environments including areas of nuclear, chemical and biological (NBC) contamination and active military combat operations, which also does a surprisingly good job of recording sound. And it shoot laser beams”
That’s better.
Mar
1
The rare ingredient required to supply the ‘bombproof’ part of our equation is extreme durability testing. Since this is invariably difficult, time-consuming and expensive, we must plum the depths of esoteric fanaticism, following where ever it may lead. The “flashlight-nut” subculture illuminated earlier can’t hold a candle (sorry, pun allotment now used) to the fertile ground tilled by our next group: gun-nuts.
Their nuttiness is our gain. Debt acknowledged, I bring you the amazing story of the Glock pistol.
