Dye Lockscreen Wallpapers for Windows Phone 7

Over the weekend I was playing around with macro shots of dye on paper. The only thing I could find in the house that I could use as ‘Inks’ were a box of red, green, blue and yellow food dyes so thats what I used. Although they didn’t bleed like I was hoping to I still think they looked pretty cool. I sat some paper down on a sheet of clear perspex with a desk lamp underneath and one above and dripped dyes onto the paper. I mostly shot video (which I am currently making into a mock movie title sequence, but more on that in a later post) but I did take a few photos and below are a some of favourites which I have sized to 480×800 which is perfect for the lock screen on a WP7 device. I like how the back lighting has created a metallic look and the colours really pop on my Omnia 7’s Super AMOLED screen!


Super Duper Macro

Recently I have been experimenting with macro photography quite a bit with some old Pentax lenses and extension tubes adapted to my Canon. I hadn’t tried with any shots with all extension tubes added together and when this weeks Gizmodo Shooting challenge was Macro I decided it would be a good excuse to get out the tripod and an LED torch to try and shoot as close as I possibly could! I took shots of several objects including coins, bubbles, pizza shapes, mini fuzzy chicken toys, bananas and a cupcake. I took about 40 shots all up to get one I liked and I settled on a cupcake shot (not the one below). It it was super hard getting the focus with a fully manual lens as well as hand holding a torch up to a ~5mm gap between the subject and lens. I go too close at one point and ended up with icing all over the lens. Here are some of my favourites not including the one I submitted to Gizmodo. For a bit of size context – The coin shot is of the Queen on the back of the 10c piece. You can see two fibres on the right which were invisible to the naked eye and the green sprinkles on the cupcake are about 1mm on the sort side!

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Canon 7D + Anamorphic 35mm projector lens

A couple weeks ago after I got back from Japan I bought an anamorphic lens off eBay for my 7D. It finally arrived yesterday and now I have to try and find a way to attach it. Since nearly all anamorphic lenses that are adapted to DSLRs are from projectors they require special clamps and adapters to attach to DLSR lenses. I spent a lot of time today researching different methods from using lens clamps to getting a custom machined device. The lens I bought is from a 35mm projector so it is quite large – 70mm for the back barrel and 110mm for the front. I was unable to find any clamps big enough to fit around my lens since all the clamps I found were for 16mm projector lenses which are around 52mm for the back barrel. So I have to come up with my own way of attaching. I ended up with the following – using adapter rings to convert from 58mm to 77mm, then use a 77mm spacer tube which should fit around the 70mm rear barrel. I should then be able to drill three holes around the spacer tube and insert thumb screws which I can tighten to clamp the lens. See the diagram below. So I have bought all the various parts off eBay and now I will have to wait a week or so to see if this plan works. I hope so. Another thing a will probably have to do is get some rail supports since the lens weighs about 1.5kg!

Click to enlarge.