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I'm going to have a belated b-day biscuit for you!

What do you normally shoot, Nate? Keep in mind that Lightroom/Photoshop still doesn't have full RAW support for the camera, which is quite annoying - I have about 5 days of images from winter break that I can't edit. I only found out about the one RAW format that Lightroom has beta support for. Not enough of a reason to avoid the camera - just mentioning it so you aren't similarly annoyed. I went from a not-very-good AF system (by today's standards) in the D810 to one of the best in the A7V. I nearly pulled the trigger on a Z6III around Thanksgiving so I could use the couple of Nikon lenses I already had, but the 30 fps and better AF pulled me over to the Sony side. I missed a lot of shots with the D810 when trying to capture my fast-moving niece. She just turned 4 a month ago, and the A7V was fantastic, keeping up with her fast-twitch movements. The pre-capture feature was great and certainly made up for my lack of skill. The D810 remains exceptionally capable in decent light for landscapes or scenes where AF speed/tracking isn't a priority, but with two more babies expected to join the family this year, I figured an upgrade would make my life easier in the coming years. The A7V also seems to do much better in low-light situations - I find I can push to higher ISOs before noise becomes an issue. Depending on what you intend to capture and how, the A7V might not be as much of an upgrade over the A7IV. For me, the upgrade was much more pronounced, and I am quite pleased with the purchase. I don't do much with video, so I didn't care as much for the hoopla around closed/open gate sensors. Last December, the D810 said Zara's left eye was in focus here, but obviously, it wasn't. Also with the D810, got lucky. And OOF again. Definitely pushing the limits of the D800 in difficult light. The noise/grain is obvious when pixel-peeping. I actually don't mind it as much in this image, but there were times when I did. Another one where I don't mind the grain. Here are some more where I feel like better AF, dynamic range, and noise performance would have helped capture what I wanted to. Some more from the Illumina Lantern Festival taken with the A7V. Exceptionally clean images. Some with the Batis 85mm (AF) and others with the Voigtlander 35mm (MF). It's no Leica, but Sony really does a fantastic job of working with manual lenses. I love their implementation of focus peaking.

RIP Ralph Towner....he was a great one 😪

Revisiting the music of my early childhood

Few more from the SSD

That is a small cat - our moggie is a chunky but lean 7kg (15.5lb). If that photographer has tripped over our cat he would have been flat on his face.

Woah - how did I miss this? Happy belated Grahame - hope you had an absolutely spiffing day.

Grand Slam of Curling is currently streaming for free (with ads) via Plex.

Guess I'm getting to be an old guy now, or at least if feels that way at times like this. Wilbur Wood was my favorite White Sox player as a kid, along with Dick Allen who sadly also passed away in 2020. Wood was a crafty knuckleballer with a rubber arm who averaged more than 40 starts and 336 innings pitched per season for the White Sox over a 5-year period from 1971-75. He once famously was a 20 game winner and a 20 game loser in the same season and almost did it a couple of other times. I can still hear Harry Carey saying his name as he trotted out to the mound to start yet another game. "Hey, didn't he pitch just the other day?" he would joke. Wood once started both games of a double header in 1973 and lost both of them!! But he played for the White Sox and that's what they did. I didn't realize until a couple of years a ago when I Googled him that he was from the Boston area and had a thick New Englander accent. By all accounts a good guy, just an every day ordinary modest guy who happened to play baseball at one point in his life. They didn't make a lot of money in those days, so he wasn't wealthy. Just gave a wealth of memories to sports minded kids like me. Pictured is the Strat-O-Matic card from his best year, which was also the year that Dick Allen won and MVP in the American League. I was 10 and will never forget either of them. RIP Woody, my fellow chubby lefty who made me think anything was possible, even if I knew I'd never be a major leaguer. Hell, I wasn't even that good in Little League! He was 84.

Curious to hear your thoughts on the camera as you get to know it better. I've got an A7IV and use an A7RV regularly and am thinking about picking up the A7V in a month or so when finances might permit it. I can't bring myself to think the A1II is worth it to me.

Weirdest title of the week... Terrifying Photo from the Minneapolis ICE Protests Will Have You Shopping for Leicas https://gizmodo.com/terrifying-photo-from-the-minneapolis-ice-protests-will-have-you-shopping-for-leicas-2000711428 Also...

Happy belated birthday!

I tried a new biscuit recipe. It's better and simpler than my stock recipe.

Raising awareness, do your own due dilligence (check your favourite feeds, Internet Storm Center, &c.): VoidLink was detected around 2026-01-13: Cloud-Native Malware Framework; Linux-based; extremely sophistocated; stealthy; modular, adaptive behavior based on detected environment; Go/Zig/C (dammit, now I have to learn Zig); highly in-depth knowledge of Linux internals... As I saw said about about it elsewhere, "targeting Windows, hackers were in the lobby; targeting Linux, hackers are now in the vault".

Thanks a lot, JoaMat. Much appreciated.👍 That confirms my understanding.

I tie cathode direct to -HV, -400 V in my case. Works with EL34, 300B, 2A3, EML 20B-V4 and EL156. The datasheet for my Electro-Harmonix 2A3EH Gold says 450 V maximum plate voltage.

@JoaMat I have a quick question regarding the servo. Once the servo is in place, does that mean the cathode resistor and its bypass capacitor are no longer needed, and the cathode is effectively tied directly without local bias components? Or are they still retained in some form? Thanks.

Thanks for the Birthday wishes everyone. The day was taken up with moving and it's aftermath. Had to look away when the movers decided it was easier to heave various pieces up and over the deck than navigate up a flight of stairs, but they are the professionals 🤷‍♂️ Then out for a Birthday Meal at a highly rated local dining establishment https://maps.app.goo.gl/3axzZPydB9u67P9y5 While we waited for a commercial sized load of bedding to be washed. Tasty Large portions, enough for lunch the following day. Brent would have felt at home.

So where can I get this Shangri-La so I can listen to it? I won't be buying a complete set with an amplifier from Fang.

Probably my last watch for a long time, but one I really like.

Neujahrskonzert 2026 / New Year's Concert 2026 / Concert du Nouvel An 2026 by Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra (2026) https://open.qobuz.com/album/nhabo81gvrobc Example: Nice recording and all the Waltzes that you can waltz to.

Happy Belated Birthday man!

I found a 2.3mm receptacle contact with a lantern-type spring insert, which should be able to tolerate some radial misalignment without too much change in the mating force. I've been toying with the idea of a multi-part jack. The pin center diameter was chosen to be 10.75mm in order to accommodate the Stax, the Hifiman and the less accurate Kaldas plug with the acrylic base. The contact retainer washer is made from Teflon which also gives a bit of flexibility. The connector and shell can be made from PEEK but I can't help trying the PEI (Ultem). Its translucent color matches with the gold plated contacts quite well. There are two variations of the design, with the retainer sandwiched between the shell and the cap, and with the retainer secured flush with the cap. The latter requires better precision from machining.